www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 C O N T E N T S Articles Concept of Honour Killing: A study of Manjul Bajaj’s Come, Before Evening Falls. Dr Randeep Rana Mahesh Dattani’s Thirty Days in September: A Study in the Treatment of Incest Santosh Kumar Sonker Treatment of Puranas in Raja Rao’s Serpent and the Rope Dr. Alka Sharma Mulk Raj Anand’s Humanistic and Bold Portrayal of His Protagonists Rajni Tiwari The Professional World in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Sanchita Das. De Constructing Family and Gender Stereotypes in The Selected Novels of Anita Desai Dr.M.Gouri Daughters of Mothers, Mothers of Daughters: The Heritage of Shashi Deshpande’s The Binding Vine Basudhara Roy The Image of Problematic City in Amit Chaudhuri’s A Strange and Sublime Address and Freedom Song. Dr. Dhananjoy Roy Delineation of inner turmoil in Female Protagonists of Margaret Atwood and Shashi Deshpande (A special reference to The Handmaid's Tale and That Long Silence) Dr. Nishi Bala Chauhan Representing the Postcolonial Subaltern: A study of Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger. Ram Bhawan Yadav Anita Desai’s In Custody – A War Anjali Sharma Vol. II. Issue. III 1 September 2011 www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Language, Character and History in Postmodern Drama: Towards Formulating a Poetics Mufti Mudasir Usurped Spaces and Poetic Identity—Anxiety Of Influence In Yeats’ Sailing To Byzantium Avijit Chakraborty Love as a Synaesthetic Experience in R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage Joyanta Dangar Gender Assertion in Colonial India: A Study of Paromita by Sumathi Sudhakar Ms Shalini Yadav & Ms Krati Sharma The Poetic Genius of Sudeep Sen: A Critical Perspective Dr.Sandhya Tiwari Robert Frost’s Conception of Poetry Dr. Neena Sharma The Dalit and Non-Dalit Women Autobiographies Yeshwant Madhav Radhakisan Detective Techniques Used In Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo And Reckless Eyeballing Dr. R.Krishnaveni Intertextuality in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace Abirami.V. Nature and Ecocriticism in Cry, The Peacock and Fire on the Mountain. C.G.Shyamala Power, Language and Context: The Sociolinguistics Of Bill Clinton’s Between Hope And History Uzoechi Nwagbara R.K. Narayan’s The Guide : A Socio-Economic Discourse. Leena Sarkar The Themes of Love and Sex in the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Kamala Das Dr. Khandekar Surendra S. The Village by the Sea: An Ecocritical Reading Raj Kumar Mishra Edward Said’s “Imaginative Geography” and Geopolitical Mapping: Knowledge/Power Constellation and Landscaping Palestine Mohamed Hamoud Kassim Al-Mahfedi Metaphor of Body in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman Shamsoddin Royanian & Zeinab Yazdani English Giant Poets in First World War Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Keith Barnes (1934- 1969) Tahir Mehmood Girish Karnad: A Man and Artist—Evolution of His Dramatic Genius Dr. Krishna Singh Making of the New Woman in Shashi Deshpande’s Novels Dr. Abhilash Nayak Emancipation of the Woman: A Study of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House A.Kumaran & Dr.R.Ganesan The Zeitgeist of the Second World War Society in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient M. Preetha Vol. II. Issue. III 2 September 2011 www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Srimanta Sankardev’s “Ankiya-Nat” (A New Dramatic Genre in Assamese Literature) Archana Bhattacharjee The Theme of Isolation in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker Dr. H.B. Patil The Road to Wigan Pier: Labyrinth of Poverty Dr. N R Sawant The Village by the Sea: An Ecocritical Reading Raj Kumar Mishra Poetry: The caterpillar Amitava Nag The Nobody Child Barbara Towell Initials carved in driftwood Charles F. Thielman Hunger Arijit Ghosh Costa Rica Haiku 2011 Ian Prattis Imagining you there on the Shore Marjorie Bruhmuller THE JOURNEY E. Joyce Moore Another View of a Grand One Whinza Kingslée Ndoro Red Sea Lakshmi Priya SELF Richard Shelton A Pain, An Ache, A Drizzle M Scott Craig Fiction: The Jigsaw Puzzle M. David Hornbuckle Olympia E. Eller Inside Passages Charlotte Lenox The Bright Drop Melissa Studdard Interview: Aparna Mukhedkar interviews M Scott Craig Aparna Mukhedkar Vol. II. Issue. III 3 September 2011 www.the-criterion.com. Making of theThe New Criterion: Woman An International in Shashi Journal Deshpande’s in English NovelsISSN 0976-8165 Dr. Abhilash Nayak Indian women, unlike their western counterparts, have always been socially and psychologically oppressed, sexually colonized and biologically subjugated against a male-dominant social set-up. Any attempt by a woman to rise above the oppressive forces rooted in the middle class margins has either been curbed mercilessly or ignored in the name of social dignity. Shashi Deshpande all through the gamut of her ever expanding creative horizon always makes it a point to provide a separate space for her characters. Though Deshpande doesn’t like to be labeled as a feminist writer she mostly focuses on the issues relating to the ‘rainbow coalition of rights, desires, agendas, struggles, victories’, speaking for all the women (Sattar, 1993). Just like a staunch feminist she “seeks to discover the female author’s quest for empowerment through self-expression by escaping the controlling authority of the male in the realm of social/sexual power” and examines the ‘double colonization’ of women under imperial and patriarchic condition. She also dares to “expose, question and challenge the age-old traditions and prejudices in male-dominated society”(Kaur, 2009:15- 20). Her novels eclectically employ the post-modern technique of deconstructing patriarchical culture and customs, and revealing these to be man-made constructs (Atrey and Kirpal, 15) . Deshpande sees the need to harmonize the man-woman relationship as equal partners. There is no victory in the subjugation and destruction of the male. The need is to see each other’s need for space, freedom of expression and love (Kaur, 2009: 24). Atrey and Kirpal too reinforce this by quoting Deshpande from her interview with Malini Nair, “aggressive feminism does not ring true in the Indian context and that for Indian women selfhood will only come from ‘probing and thinking for oneself”(07). Deshpande doesn’t believe in taking ‘the militant anti-men and anti- marriage stance’. We can also hear an echo of this in the following lines from Beena Agarwal, “The fictional world of Shashi Deshpande is not directed towards the annihilation of the existing order but it seeks a reorientation of society where a more balanced relationship might have been possible (217). Female protagonists in Deshpande’s novels stand apart from that of their counterparts in the writings of many contemporary women writers. Sandwiched between tradition and modernity, illusion and reality and the mask and the face, they lead a life of restlessness. Progressing along the axis of delimiting restrictions, self- analysis, protest and self-discovery, they try to create both physical as well as psychological space for themselves to grow on their own. Like the archetypal New- Woman, Deshpande’s protagonists are all educated, proactive and progressive, moving on undaunted. They rebel against the dictates of their domestic duties and social sanctions, challenge ‘male-devised orthodoxies about women’s nature, capacities and roles’ (Kaur, 56) and existential insecurity. Transgressing the socially conditioned boundaries of the body, they frankly and frequently enter into a dialogic relationship with their bodies, both within and without; represent values, beliefs and ideas which are modern and stand in contradistinction with the traditional ones. Being the representatives of the new generation of self-actualizing women, they seek to eek out new ways of dealing with their problems, instead of running away from them and realizing that the solutions lie within themselves. They have a balanced, practical approach to their problems. They realize that victory doesn’t lie in the subjugation and Vol. II. Issue. III 4 September 2011 www.the-criterion.comdestruction of the male,The rather Criterion: than An bringi Internationalng him Journalto see thein English indispensability ISSNof each 0976-8165 other’s space (Kaur, 91). They start up as rebellious and discontented but end up renewed and rejuvenated. The New Woman is primarily characterized by the spirit of rebelliousness, visibly exercising its influence on all relationships, the boundaries of time and space notwithstanding. This spirit is manifested through diverse means and modes. A woman’s rejection of her assigned role inside the family and society, refusal to follow the traditional paths, inherent revulsion to the idealism associated with normal physical functions of the body such as menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth/procreation which often act as catalysts for sexual colonialism, aversion to the practice of favouring the male child over and above the girl child and disrespect for the social taboos concerning the human body are some of the challenging issues that Deshpande picks up to show how the New Woman conducts herself. The present paper attempts to analyse the progression of women from passive resistance to self-discovery in some of her selected novels. The plot of Moving On spanning over four generations presents a kaleidoscope of relationships –evolving, expanding and dissolving because of the inherent contradictions. The spirit of rebellion provides the right impetus to the characters to move on with confidence, at least with self-awareness. Vasu, Badrinath’s wife, widely known for her shyness and reticence, was an ardent advocate of freedom, always wanted ‘to be on her own’, freedom from the constant demands on her, from the claims, from the need to be ‘aamchi mai’(125)”. She spews out her suppressed anger in the form of the stories that she writes. Writing becomes an important means for her to fight patriarchical set up.