Intersection of class and community in Shashi Deshpande's novels

It is proposed to study mainly the fiction of Shashi Deshpande with the reference to the intersection of class and community in Indian social system. The issues of class and community did not largely perturb Indian society in pre-independence period. However, the Indian English novels produced after independence depicted a successful paradigm shift to reveal the social changes. Contemporary Indian English novel portrays images of protagonists confined to rigid tradition and orthodoxy. The novels produced after independence show that the western culture has been partly assimilated by Indians. Post Independence Indian society also witnessed a new social order coming into existence. It was also to see the emergence of new patterns of class structure and the formation of new communities according to the changing patterns of life. The present study attempts to focus on Deshpande¿s novels in terms of their thematic and political concerns. In addition, the study investigates the relationship between the novels and the social structures. The purpose of the present study is to find out whether the social structure and human behaviour can be explained in terms of the primary membership of