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Shashi Deshpande’s ‘That Long Silence’ Examines Domestic Resentment
Shashi Deshpande’s novel is about a woman named Jaya.
She feels bored and unhappy with a life focused on her husband and children.
Her husband, Mohan, is facing an unnamed problem at work, so the family moves to another flat for a while.
When their children are away, Jaya thinks about how her life became this way.
She remembers growing up and the women in her family.
Their lives help shape how she understands her own.
Jaya wants to be seen as a person, not only as a wife and mother.
But she depends on her marriage for financial stability, so making a big change is difficult.
The novel shows how family expectations can limit a woman’s choices.
Shashi Deshpande’s 1988 novel follows Jaya, a wife and mother resentful of the monotony and constraints of domestic life.
After her husband Mohan faces an unspecified workplace disgrace, the family temporarily moves from their Churchgate home to their Dadar flat.
With their children away, Jaya reflects on her marriage, childhood, family relationships and the gradual silencing of her individuality.
The novel traces how women around Jaya shape her sense of herself and her place within family life.
Jaya’s dissatisfaction does not lead to a dramatic rebellion; the review emphasizes her financial dependence and limited options.
- Who
- Jaya, her husband Mohan, and their family; the novel is by Shashi Deshpande.
- What
- A review of That Long Silence, a novel about Jaya’s resentment of domestic monotony and her struggle for individuality.
- Where
- The story moves between the family’s Churchgate house and Dadar flat in Mumbai.
- When
- The novel was published in 1988.
- Why
- Jaya reflects on her life after Mohan’s workplace trouble leads the family to move temporarily, and the children are away.
Jaya’s desire for independence
Constraints on rebellion
Domestic life and individuality
Jaya’s desire for independence
Jaya resents being defined as a wife and mother and longs for a life of her own.
Constraints on rebellion
Marriage and family responsibilities shape her life, and the novel depicts her as unable to make a dramatic break.
Material security
Jaya’s desire for independence
Jaya’s dissatisfaction reflects the limits imposed on middle-class women whose identities are tied to serving family.
Constraints on rebellion
The review says her lack of independent income makes rebellion materially risky, while marriage provides stability.
Key facts
- Novel
- That Long Silence
- Author
- Shashi Deshpande
- Publication year
- 1988
- Central character
- Jaya
- Husband
- Mohan, a public works engineer
- Temporary move
- From the family’s Churchgate house to their Dadar flat
- Writing perspective
- First person, narrated by Jaya
Quotes
Jaya
Protagonist of Shashi Deshpande’s novel That Long Silence
“I had often found family life unendurable. Worse than anything else had been the boredom of the unchanging pattern, the unending monotony. I remember now how often I had sighed for a catastrophe, a disaster, no, not a personal one, but anything to shake us out of our dull grooves.”
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Sources
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