Journey from Self- Alienation to Self- Realization: Shashi Deshpande's the Dark Holds No Terror

Abstract

In the way a huge corpus of Post colonial writings Indian English Literature has been generally preoccupied for the last few decades with the marginalized and underdogs. When Dark Holds no Terror was published in 1980 by Shashi Deshpande, it contributed to the corpus of woman's writings in Indian English Literature where the focus naturally falls on the women and their precarious predicaments under the male – centric society. The novel focuses on woman's awareness of her predicament, her desire to be recognized as a person than as a woman and her desire to have an independent social image. This paper studies the protagonist's intricate journey from self –alienation to self – realization through different phases of her life (childhood, youth and adulthood).