Vol.1 No.

1 October 2016 e-ISSN: 2456-5571

WOMEN CHARACTERS IN SHASHI DESHPANDE’S THE INTRUSION AND

OTHER STORIES: A STUDY
STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Dr. Punam Pandey

In-charge and Asst. Professor, Dept. of English and Modern European Languages,
JR Handicapped University, Chitrakoot

Abstract
Finally rejecting the level of a feminist, Shashi Deshpande has always been writing about women. There is no feminine
mystique in her portrayal of women. Instead, her novels as well as short stories have women protagonists living in a very
patriarchal society and, yet trying to define themselves, to find a niche for themselves, a space to call their own, a voice to
express their thoughts to live a live according to their wishes and desires to fulfill their potential as human beings.
Keywords: 'ghettoisation', marital fidelity, kumkum.

Introduction mother in the times of pain, sorrow, fear, despondency etc.

The Intrusion and Other Stories is about the in 'Why a Robin', the closer to her father and she finds the
relationships that women have with others- men as well as mother insufficient in many ways. "I'll ask Papa. He's sure
other women and is these relationships that give a room to to know, he'll help me" (10). While even the mother feels "I
access the emotion and psychological aspect of a woman. don't have the key to open up this beautiful child, though
If women's writing can or does appeal only to women she is mine" (11). Father and mother formed a close circle
readers, then there is a serious danger of 'ghettoisation', of to which the mother is denied entry:" The reading lamp
such writing being left only on the periphery, of always casts a halo of light around their glowing faces but the light
having the tag of women's writing without an adjective to does not reach the corner where I am sitting"(12). But then
describe it. As L. Kannan puts it: within a few hours, as the daughter menstruate for the first
For a woman, her works are no less a process of time, standing on the brink of womanhood; she instinctively
self actualization as her life is. In both, she wrestles with reaches out for her mother. She wants the mother to stay
the host of obstinate paradigms and syndromes, with her, hold her close, allay her fears, and the mother
precipitated by not just the myths, legends or the collective feels "joyous, exalted' as if I have found one key, opened
memory of the inherent conservative elements within a one door" (14).The closed space, the intimate circle of
community, but equally with the ones thrown by the mother and daughter is impregnable and out of bound for
movement of feminism itself. any male. Like the safe space, the mother and her past
In this collection of short stories most of the become a safe apace for this young girl who is suddenly
stories have a female protagonist at the center analyzing, made of her body, her sexuality, her fearlessness which
remembering, recapitulating or evaluating a relationship. In distinguishes her form the male of the species.
most of stories it is the family relationship with another In It Was Dark, a 14-year old rape victim
female - a mother, daughter or granddaughter- or a male - attempts to come to terms with the terrifying experience.
a husband or a father. Interestingly, there is no sibling The mother attempts her come out of the trauma but the
sister- brother relationship though a couple of stories do young girl continues to stare at the ceiling, "with black and
have a sister- sister relationship. The bonding of women unseeing eyes", (32) isolates and alienated by her
takes on various forms, for example, a daughter needs her experience. In her novel The Building vine, Shashi
mother the most in times of trouble. Deshpande poignantly Deshpande had juxtaposed rape in marriage and outside it-
describes the instinctive reaching out of a daughter for the the rape of Kalpana and Meera. Here too, the mother

1 Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science

 Vol.1 No.1 October 2016 e-ISSN: 2456-5571

thinks of her wedding night when she remembered her exists. Now like a phantom limb, my child seems to cling to
mother's words. "You must submit" (Ibid) and it was only me. Now, when he does not exit, he asserts himself. I am
submission that had made thinks easier. The child finally conscious of the piercing pain in the place that he had
relates to the mother and allows her eyes to shift their filled. Grief becomes real. I swing like a monstrous
focus from ceiling onto her mother. The unnamed 14-year pendulum, between grief, guilt and shame. Guilt conquers.
old becomes the victim of the outrage against the female I welcome it and shoulder the burden with a masochistic
body-rape. To the mother it seems as if being a female fervor. But for me, my child would have lived. I tied to
meant building walls with negatives around oneself: delude myself into thinking it is fate. But I do not believe in
Don't-don't-don't- you're female. They taught me fate only in inevitability. And this was not inevitable. But,
to build a wall around myself with negatives from yes, it was. I could have done no other thing, acted in no
childhood. And then suddenly, when I got married, they told other way. (50)
me to break the walls down. To behave as if it had never The anonymity of many of these characters in
been. And my husband too- how completely his disregard their being unnamed gives them their universality too. The
of that wall had been; I had felt totally vulnerable, wholly need to reach out to a child, one's own child, is common
defenseless. I won't let my daughter live behind walls; I had threat linking many of the short stories in this collection. In
thought. (31) 'The Cruelty Game', the recently widowed Pramila Auntie
From the outrage against the female body, places her child Sharu's needs even above her own
Deshpande moves on to the women's sexuality, personal sorrow. In spite of all the criticism she decides to
motherhood and the choice to abort one's child. For eons in celebrate her daughter's birthday, while in 'My Beloved
our patriarchal society it has been the prerogative of the Charioteer', Ajji finds it impossible to reach out her
male to decide where or not a child should be born. In daughter Aarti who has isolated herself totally after the
'Death of a Child' the protagonist decides not to have a sudden death of her husband. The mother here feels
child that can welcome into this world. She feels, "The third helpless at the silence of her daughter.
time in less than four years. It isn't fair" (44). Sita in Desai's Nine months I carried this daughter of mine in my
novel Where Shall We Go This Summer? Wanted to retain body. I felt every beat of her heart, every movement of her
her child in her womb and not allow it to be born in this limbs within me. But-and my doctor told me this and then -
violent-ridden, callous, loveless world. Here the mother my pains and shocks could never penetrate to her, she
decides that she will have the third child because "Children was insulated against them. Even now she is protected
stifle your personality. You become a mother, nothing from my pains, even now. I have no protection against her
more"(45). She feels quite strongly about it, about being pains. I suffer with her, but like all my other emotions, it is a
stifled, about being pushed into a pre-ordinate role: I feel futile suffering. For, I cannot help her. I can only fumble
trapped. I feel like an animal….. I cannot imagine that the and blunder and make things worse.
main purpose of my life is to breed" (Ibid). And so, against The absence of women in family photographs or
the half-hearted consent of her husband, she decides to in the family tree the total obliteration of them or their
have MPT- a medical termination of pregnancy. The contribution in the family is an issue that has been dealt
woman makes a choice that she is the master of her body, with many woman writers. In Deshpande's 'That long
her life and her destiny. Yet, she is confused and Silence', the protagonist Jaya argues that as women do not
Deshpande portrays realistically the ambivalent feelings of find a place in their natal family tree. But this does not
a woman towards he own decision: happen very often and even the names of the girls are
I feel heaviness in my own breasts. There is a changed at marriage for various reasons. And then the
hollow feeling within me. I'm filled with strange thoughts. identity of a woman seems to be at stake because the
Where have I heard that, after an amputation, a person identity associated with one's name is suddenly snatched
continues to feel that amputated limb? It itches, it hurts, it away and one may very well begin to wonder 'Who Am I?'

2 Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science

 Vol.1 No.1 October 2016 e-ISSN: 2456-5571

In 'Lucid Movements', the dying woman (a mother) have to search. Each goes out to the other and we are
suddenly wants to know her mother's name- the mother merged in a oneness that is absolute. I give all of me until I
who died while giving birth to her first child (who is the am only a hollow ecstasy. And pain…….later we lie in the
dying woman). The daughter realizes that the mother is usual serenity and peace that descends on us after loving.
probably thinking of tat pre-wedding rite, in which priests (90)
call out names the couple's ancestors- father, grandfather, As she prepares to leave, she realizes that being
great grandfather. The names roll off their tongues with a away for two years may be "a fearsome period. Two years
musical, sonorous solemnity (74). The mother's name is of experiences that we will not share. And each one a brick
not even mentioned. The women are there but they are not that can become a wall between us" (pp, 89-90). Here is a
known only by relationship- Ajji, Akka, Amma, Kaki. They contemporary middle-class woman who chooses to place
are only the roles that they have to act out and the real her career aspirations above her domestic demands and
woman with an identity of her own is never seen, never responsibilities. On the other hand, the latter story is about
allowed to appear. After the death of her mother the a bored housewife who is looking for some colour, meaning
daughter decides that names are important and wonders and excitement in her otherwise drab, uneventful,
"Can I prove to my mother- my mother? No myself - that predictable, routine existence. She justifies her decision to
even if they never chant a litany of their names at a have an affair:
wedding, these women are real?"(79) She wants to make I felt no guilt towards my husband, because I
sure that these women in the temple in the story 'The would be depriving him of nothing, nothing he wanted. How
Stone Women'. Men from their imagination create the often I felt in myself a boundless capacity for loving, for
sculptures and many of them have nothing to do with the giving! But I had felt in him an incapacity to receive and for
real women of those days. In fact gender becomes the that I hated him at times….. he was not a wicked man, not
distinct category bearing social meanings through social, harsh, not cruel. Only unperceptive. And dull. And dullness
cultural and psychological transformation. The women in to me is an unforgivable crime. (66)
these sculptures are portrayed as charmers, as dancers, The marital relationship is analyzed from the
as courtesans and real, as they seem to have no woman's point of view in the story Intrusion, too. The
professional characters. The entire aims seems to be just newly-wed wife is unable to accept sex so soon after
exhibit their charms and sensuous moods: "The image of marriage with a man she feels is still a stranger to have
woman as displaying physical charm emerged predominant even though he is legally her husband. She wishes to know
wit eclipse of her mental accomplishment, creativity and him better but he cannot understand why that is important."
her focused seclusion and consequent isolation from the Know each other? What has that to do with it? Aren't we
productive process of contemporary society" (Vashishtha, married now?" (40). To her it seems as if sex even with her
111). husband when it is against her wishes was" an intrusion of
Marital fidelity, especially for women, is an my (her) privacy, the violation of my (her) right to myself
accepted traditional Indian value. In portraying the (herself)" (41).
husband-wife relationship, Deshpande veers from the Man's definition, desire and demand for sexuality
extreme compatibility of 'It Was The Nightingale' to the were enshrined and thrust upon woman's management and
possibility of infidelity in 'An Antidote To Boredom'. In the negotiation of her body. (Singhi, 56)
former story she describes the pain of parting which seems In delineating the relationship of women in
to affect the husband more as "And yet his pain pierces my society and society norms, Deshpande subtly interweaves
armour of understanding but-not-caring" (89). Yet their love the stigma attached to widows in a story about children-'
making is described with no frills attached: The Cruelty Games'. As the title appropriately suggests,
And then we are lost. No, not lost. Found, women are stigmatized for no fault of theirs. As Pramila
because this is where we really find each other. We do not Auntie tries hard to lead a normal life after the death of her

3 Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science

 Vol.1 No.1 October 2016 e-ISSN: 2456-5571

husband, everyone seems intent on reminding her of her Works Cited

widowhood status. Even grandmother raves, "Take that off, 1. Deshpande, Shashi.1993. The Intrusion and
why do you have that, take it off "(128) referring to the Other Stories. India: Penguin. Print.
kumkum which is permitted to be used only by women 2. Kannan, Lakshmi. 2001. To Grow or not to Grow:
whose husbands are alive. Indian Feminism ed. Jasbir Jain and Awadesh
This collection of stories portrays women Kumar Singh. New Delhi: Creative. Print.
attempting to break out of the pre-ordinate, pre-defined 3. Singhi, N.K. 1996. Gender Themes: Issues and
roles. These stories appropriately and abundantly succeed Perspective: Women Images. ed. Pratibha Jain
to bring forth the emotion and psychological aspect of and Rajan Mahan. Jaipur: Rawat. Print.
women especially from Indian society. Deshpande has also 4. Vashistha, Neelima. 1996. Images of Women as
succeeded in revealing the real condition of women in India Reflected in Sculpture: Women Images. ed.
in this century. Pratibha Jain and Rajan Mahan. Jaipur: Rawat.
Print.

4 Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science