Obsession with Masculine Self: A Critical Study of Shashi Despande’s Small Remedies
Author : Dr. Satish Kumar
Abstract :
Men’s belief that they should be the controller of the sexuality of their wives is generally practiced in patriarchal societies. At the same time, the idea of being experienced in the field of sexuality is celebrated in the case of a man, but the same thing becomes a taboo in the case of a woman. The age old values of sexual purity are imposed only on women denying them the experience of wonders of their feminine self. However, in recent times, the traditional concept of love and marriage as sacrament and sex as a taboo is fast losing its importance. Sex is now being viewed by more and more men and women as a physical need. Now a day the negative attitude towards sex is losing importance. The condemnation of sex has also lost ground significantly and the positive attitude regarding sex as one of the needs of every human being is up-and-coming. No doubt, the attitude of many human beings towards sex is changing but this change is not fully accepted in patriarchal societies. It is hardly approved in the case of women because there it is perceived as a matter of honour of the family; on the other hand, it is regarded as allright with men. They can have pre-marital physical experience but when it comes to women, especially their wives, they want them to be virgins at the time of marriage. In this paper, Shashi Deshpande’s novel Small Remedies has been studied from the above point of view to show how far a man can go to preserve his masculine self.
Keywords :
Obsession, masculine, sexuality, self, social image
