DIALECTICS OF POWER IN SHASHI DESHPANDE’S THE DARK HOLDS NO TERRORS

Abstract

When Foucault considers an individual as the site of oppression as well as resistance, he stresses, on, “the role that individuals play in power relations – whether they are simply subjected to oppression or whether they actively play a role in the form of their relations with others and with institutions” (Mills 35).  Sarita, the protagonist in Shashi Deshpande’s novel, The Dark Holds No Terrors, seems to be an individual, who, if seen in the light of Foucauldian ideas, becomes a site of oppression as well as resistance. Right from her early childhood, Sarita is subjected to the practice of gender - discrimination in her home. Sarita becomes the target of her mother’s dislike and scornful attitude, for whom Sarita, the female child is nothing but a “liability” and her brother Dhruva – the precious one who would lit the funeral pyre of their parents. Simone de Beauvoir once said, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (The Second Sex 267). These most quoted words by the French feminist writer are totally apt for Sarita or Saru, the central character of the novel The Dark Holds No Terrors.