BLEMISHED WOMENHOOD A STUDY ON THE BINDING VINE
SMITHA MARY SEBASTIAN
Assistant Professor (Guest) Government Polytechnic College Attingal
doi: https://doi.org/10.33329/rjelal.7119.118

Abstract

Shashi Deshpande in The Binding Vine encapsulates the myriad stigmas associated with rape, oversexed lovelessness in marriage and the unspoken yet strong boundaries women are compelled to maintain. Deshpande’s The Binding Vine explores rape, in and out of marriage, as a social stigma to elucidate the relationship between rape, power and virility. Death as a motif runs from the beginning to the end of the novel. The women in the novel discard their selfhood and identity to be the embodiment of tolerance, obedience and submissiveness. This paper aims to analyse in particular the motif of marriage as a tool of repression that ultimately silences women and underplays all that is feminine. Keywords: stigma, marriage, rape, women.

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