Reconciliation as a Cathartic release in Shahshi Deshpande’s “That Long Silence”

Abstract

A literary Catharsis is the climaxing effect created by the causes in the course of the novel. It can have different release in accordance with the objective of the creator. Reconciliation relieves the tension and anxiety built by various occurrences. The novelist’s social seasoning paves such a kind of sleek path in the Indian social context. Women condition in the patriarchal society, Women are considered as inanimate objects. As they are imbibed with the male oriented society, they could not fulfill their desires even in writing. Male dominated society oppressed her desires. Shashi Deshpande’s protagonist Jaya in That Long Silence, could not fulfill her desires in her writing and also she is disappointed in her married life. When Mohan, Jaya’s husband, had caught in a financial scam, he blamed Jaya with negligence of duty and in sincerity to him. Jaya wanted to contradict but she could not because she was advised by her Ajji, her grandma, to keep silence. So she did not retort and moved to accept mutual responsibility in marriage. She has shaped herself to the wishes of Mohan. Jaya realizes that she had to conflict her own battle and derive her own solution. Accordingly she understands the necessity to break the silence, formulate her predicament and establish her identity. She feels that there is always space for discussion and reconciliation. She decides that she will not renounce the identity or the individuality. She will make the strategy of reconciliation but it will not be a servile one. That Long Silence can be read as apparent of memory and catharsis. Shashi Deshpande highlights the social evils of power structures designed by the patriarchal society. The Protagonist of “That Long Silence” overcomes the Catharsis of the insitu pressures not by revolution or rebellion but by the strategy of reconciliation. The social experience of the novelist drives her so gentle towards this kind of Cathartic release.