QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND FEMININE SENSIBILITY IN SHASHI DESHPANDE’S STRANGERS TO OURSELVES

Abstract [English]

In Shashi Deshpande’s work, the search for identity is a recurring theme that shows the conflict between social roles and personal affirmation. The study is part of a larger discussion about women’s writing in India that questions gender, silence, and societal norms by focusing on this novel. This analysis goes beyond just gender politics to look at the mental and social aspects of identity development as well. This gives us a more complete picture of the internal and external forces that affect women’s lives. The junction of tradition, modernity, and feminist consciousness is the most important thing to understand about the protagonist’s mental state and, by extension, the mental state of the modern Indian woman who is dealing with contradictory demands. Also, the study recognizes how important it is to look at identity not as something that stays the same, but as something that changes over time through constant personal and social negotiation. This study combines feminist literary criticism with social and cultural factors to give a full picture of what it means to be a woman in Strangers to Ourselves.