THE ROLE OF HEGEMONY IN THE IDENTITY: A CRITICAL STUDY ON SHASHI DESHPANDE'S STRANGERS TO OURSELVES

Most Indian women have experienced hardships because they are expected to submit to and be obedient to their male-dominated, patriarchal households' traditional rituals. The civilization frequently transfers these customary rituals from one procreation to the next. For this reason, over the ages, these customs have been passed down from one generation to the next and are still being followed. The younger, more advanced civilization finds it unacceptable that the older generation is trying to force these archaic values on the younger generation. While traditional values hold significance in their own right, they also impose oppressive regulations on women in society. The women of the modern present civilization also want to be followed in those archaic customs by the blind followers and streakers of the customary conventional orthodox civilization. With each new scientific and technological development, global civilization is lurching forward, and women are leading the way towards the cutting edge of modernity. Shashi Deshpande has delved deeply into the inner psychic conditions of women and completed her important compositional work to provoke Indian women for their upbringing. These women bear the brunt of their own incapacity to resist the archaic customs of their society as well as their humiliation, devaluation, discrimination, and exploitation within the patriarchal mentality of Indian society.