The Dark Holds No Terrors by Shashi Deshpande | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Dark Holds No Terrors was the first novel written by Shashi Deshpande that was published in 1980. This novel explores the trauma of a middle-class working woman trapped in a male-dominated society. Deshpande picturizes her men and women characters as the victims of modern society. The author explores and exposes the long smothered wail of the incarcerated psyche of her female protagonist imprisoned within the four walls of domesticity and sandwiched between tradition and modernity. The novel has two parts with eight chapters each.

Characters of The Dark Holds No Terror:

Sarita or Saru is the protagonist of the novel. She wasn’t a beautiful and attractive girl during her youth. She realized that to attain the respect of others, either one has to be pretty (for Saru, this is impossible) or become something respectable like a doctor. She devotes herself to studies and gets admission to a medical college. Baba is Sarita’s father. During her childhood, he remained indifferent to her but he is a responsible sane man. Sarita’s mother was a traditional woman who preferred the patriarchial ways of society. Her mother always gave more importance to Dhruva, Sarita’s younger brother. Dhruva was an attractive teen boy who died during an accident in which Sarita was involved. Her mother blames Sarita for Dhruva’s death. Manohar is the husband of Sarita. They met during the college. Manohar was an attractive young man and a poet. Manohar belongs to a lower caste but Sarita goes against her family and marries him. However, marrying Manohar haunts her because of Manu’s sadism and savage treatment of Saru that stems out of his frustration at seeing Saru’s success as a doctor while he works as a school teacher. In his frustration, Manohar turns a sadist and makes Sarita suffer, while enjoying it. Madhav is a young man who is studying accounts. He lives with Saru’s father as a tenant. He is a young attractive man with a good nature who accompanies Saru’s father after her mother’s death and takes care of the old man. Renu and Abhi are young children of Sarita and Manohar.

Summary of The Dark Holds No Terrors:

The title of the novel suggests its theme. “The dark holds no terrors, that the terrors are inside us all the time. We carry them within us, and like traitors, they spring out when we least expect them to scratch and maul.”

The novel begins as Sarita knocks at the door of her parental house. She is returning to her father’s house after fifteen long years of her marriage during which, she never visited her parents. Sarita is a successful respected doctor working and living in Bombay. She visits her maternal home to see and serve her ill father. She tells herself it is only to check how her father was coping after the death of his wife. There is no personal agenda for this visit. Saru’s mother died some time ago. She came to know about her demise through one of her colleagues (Prof. Kulkarni) of her mother’s death due to cancer. Fifteen years ago, before leaving her house and getting married to Manohar, an attractive man belonging to a lower caste she met in her college, she vowed that she would never return to her home. However, now her marriage is on the rocks. She finds her husband an extremely sadist aggressive person and it becomes unbearable for her to suffer the humiliation and pain of it. As a recluse, she visits her father’s home. Her father opens the door and is surprised at seeing her but shows no emotions. He invites her in and offers her water. Her father still feels so distant and indifferent towards her. “The familiar irritation, the familiar exasperation. To meet after fifteen years and feel only that!” Saru thinks.

Saru comes to know that her father is not living alone. A young man named Madhav is accompanying him. Madhav is a college student learning account. Saru realizes that he has a good rapport with her father. Madhav reminds her of Dhruva, her younger brother who died in an accident. The way her father tells his name, comfortably and with ease, leaves her unsettled. He has yet to call her by her name since she walked through his door. She meets Madhav and notices the affection her father seems to have for the boy. She had always believed he was a man incapable of having strong feelings but now she realizes that all his indifference was a sham, or was meant only for her. Saru goes on to try to get her father’s attention. She shows him pictures of her children. Her eldest, Renu, as Madhav points out, resembles her mother. Saru vehemently disagrees. It scares her that Renu could be like her mother. But somewhere she knows there is a similarity. Not in their looks but rather in their personality. The second picture she pulls out is that of her son, Abhi. They tip-toe past the fact that he resembles her dead brother, Dhruva.

Saru spends some days at her father’s house and soon the news that Saru is in town reaches the ears of everyone. People start visiting her. They eagerly seek her professional assistance. Occasionally, her kids write to her. So does Manu. She writes back to the kids. Life seems to be good. Yet, at her heart, she is disturbed. To her, grief seems to have the ability to stay with you for years, whereas happiness seems more like an illusion. She wanted to share it with someone, but she did not have that kind of relationship with anyone. Not her old friends. And definitely not her father.

One day, while resting on her bed, she remembers the day when her brother Dhruva died. She was with him then. She remembers how distraught her mother was at the loss of her son and shouted at her, “What are you alive and he dead?” Her mother was a tyrant who influenced Saru’s perception of herself. Growing up, she wanted to be pretty. But she knew she was far from it at least going by what her mother said. Saru was of average looks but her mother believed she was ugly.

One day, a lady doctor visited their home. As a child, Saru found her elegant with an air of superiority, she concluded that it was because she was a doctor. For one to walk around, seemingly detached, either one had to be pretty (for Saru, this is impossible) or become something respectable like a doctor. Saru decided she also wanted to be a doctor. It was not easy for her as She had to get past her mother and get her Baba to agree to send her to Bombay for college. Her mother was not at all interested in supporting her higher studies but her father supported her. She went to college and became a successful doctor but now she seems to have lost pride in her profession. She calls her profession a ventriloquist, giving her a voice, telling her what lines to tell her patients, and what faces to make. She fears, without it, she is just a lifeless puppet.

At college, she made some new friends who introduced her to Manohar, an aspiring poet and an English teacher. She fell in love with him and they decided to marry. However, Manohar was of a lower caste. Saru fought with her parents and married him despite not getting their blessing. Her mother had made it clear that she could not come running back to them if her marriage to ‘that man’ (he belonged to a lower caste) ever went sour. Saru, at that time, promised that she would never look back. She was happy with Manu. Her married life was not easy at the beginning. She passed her MBBS but wasn’t earning enough and Manu was working at a small college. However, one of her lecturers, Boozie took interest in her and helped her in getting a degree of M.D. Soon, Saru started earning much more than Manu. And she observed that her success and Manu’s own failure frustrated him.

Meanwhile, Madhav decides to visit his parental house as his younger brother runs away. It was Dhruva’s birthday. Saru and her father were alone and the silence between them became burdensome. She dared to ask him if like her mother, she too believed that she was the reason for her brother’s death? Her father says nothing and she weeps heavily. The next day, her father comforts her and talks to her with compassion. This fatherly love melts Saru and she confesses her current problems. She informs him that her husband is a sadist. He is a violent stranger at night, and she is a terrified animal. He rapes her without a second thought, while she lies there unsure of where her reality ends and the nightmare begins. Yet she doesn’t say a word to him because the very next morning, he always becomes the caring husband he is. She mentions that it has not been like this since the start. After their marriage, they were financially struggling but were a happy couple. After her MD, she continued to gain success as a doctor while Manu pursued M. A. Saru mentions, “A wife should always be a few feet behind her husband. If he is an MA you should be a BA. If he is 5'4'tall you shouldn’t be more than 5'3'tall. If he is earning five hundred rupees you should never earn more than four hundred and ninety-nine rupees. That’s the only rule to follow if you want a happy marriage…No partnership can ever be equal. It will always be unequal, but take care it is unequal in favor of the husband. If the scales tilt in your favor, God, help you, both of you.”
One day, a girl visited their home to interview the working women. She interviewed Manu too and asked him “How does it feel when your wife earns not only the butter but most of the bread as well?” Manu smiled at the question but didn’t answer.

He had attacked her ruthlessly that night. And she endured, unable to fight against his strength. And she had continued to endure well after that. Saru knows that another reason for Manu’s anger is Boozie’s excessive interest in her. While Saru always respected Boozie as her senior colleague and teacher, Boozie had an interest in her as a woman. He would often help her during her time of need, offering her loans or helping her get admission to college for her MD. Manu never asked her the reason for Boozie’s help, but he had his own conclusions.

Baba listens to Saru’s struggles patiently and comforts her. He asks her, “Aren’t you sufficient for yourself?” He reminds her that her mother is dead, offering her a choice, that if she decides, she can remain at her father’s house forever.

Saru receives a letter from Manu, informing her that he is visiting her. Saru remembers her first holiday with her family. While shopping for a suitcase with her husband, Manu for their holiday, Saru and Manu meet a colleague of Manu’s and his wife. The couple asks Manu if he is going somewhere to which he replies that he with his family is going to Ooty on a small holiday. The wife of Manu’s colleague then remarks that had her husband married a doctor (like Manu did) he too would have had the good fortune to go to Ooty. Saru says that the observation of the wife is enough to arouse the savage and sadist in Manu in the bed with her. But then again, in the morning Manu becomes a normal, kind husband who leaves Saru to take a rest in the hotel while he takes the children for an outing. Sitting alone in the hotel, Saru recalls the times when her mother would treat her harshly while plaiting her hair. Saru relives the pain of being harshly treated by her mother and begins to sob.

Saru is yet to decide what she really wants from her life, will she return with Manu and try to help him get rid of his depression, will she return with him and continue to suffer the humiliation, or will she decide to say no to him and stay with her father? The novel ends inconclusively.

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