Problematising Gender Identity in the Novel The Binding Vine by Shashi Deshpande

Gender issue is the prime concern in Shashi Deshpande's novels. But to say that her authorial sweep remains confined to issues pertaining to gender and sex only, is to limit her fictional vision which is integrally holistic and takes into account each and every facet of the flux called life. As evident from socio-cultural scenario across India, many changes have been taking place in the society. But the position of women has remained more or less the same. Majority of women even today reconcile to a life of humiliation due to gender bias while performing roles of wives and mothers in a rigidly custom- bound milieu they live in. Even economically independent women have not been able to free themselves from these conventional shackles that are so retrograde.