The home has long been considered as the only area of activity for a woman. That is the place where she is supposed to find satisfaction in the performance of her duties in different roles of daughter, sister, daughter-in-law and mother. Even today, female child has been brought up with the conventional ideas of a woman's destiny swirling around in the air of her house. Although parents encourage the education of their daughters, the overall expectation is that it is a daughter's duty to marry and raise a family. They are always instructed to build up the status of the families they belong to. In the novel That Long Silence by Shashi Deshpande, like Kasturi in Difficult Daughters, it can be seen that throughout her stint of formal education, Jaya is never allowed to forget that `marriage is her destiny'. It is to get well-settled educated husband, she has to be educated through English medium. They have been taking care of Jaya with a plan to marry her off into a rich family. Otherwise they had nothing to do with Jaya's feelings, desires or longings. She had been longing for the true and deep love of her parents but they did not care for it. Her parents' behavior has deeply sown the seed of hatred in Jaya for the male dominated society and was dominant in her very strongly during her married life.

Women's movement in our country has a long, chequered and distinguished history, focusing on several social issues like dowry deaths, female foeticide, violence against women, ignorance, illiteracy, and gender discrimination etc. To some extent, awareness of women due to the spread of education among women, some of the evils have been effaced from our society. One of the most positive developments in the last three decades has been the growing power and status of women in the Indian society. But still there are some social evils because of which women suffer a lot. Especially, educated Indian women are engaged in the complex and difficult socio-psychic problems of defining an authentic self in a male-centered society. Even today, some families value their sons more than their daughters.

Literature, art, cinema and many other genres have from time to time depicted women in many forms. 20^th and 21^st centuries have evidenced a sea change in the life and standards of women once considered as the weaker and less privileged sex. The wave of feminism has influenced most the developed and developing nations. Because of the introduction of different forms of women-centered art, the need for ever-changing viewpoints continues to be felt everywhere. Today's woman struggles to be her own `Me' within and without. She fights for liberty. She is eager to defy the patriarchal hegemony and constantly raises a voice against male dominance, expressing her real self. She is against the hierarchization of male values if it negates the female factor. Today's woman experiences the distinction, differences of treatment given to the female section of the society. Since childhood, the daughters have been treated differently from their brothers even by their parents because of certain rules laid down by the male-dominated society. This paper presents how the seed of hatred for patriarchal dominion is sown in the protagonist in That Long Silence.

English Studies Journal, Patriarchal Dominion, Positive Developments, Social Evils, Patriarchal Hegemony, Exceptional Cases, Patriarchal Hierarchy, English Education, Indian Society, Gender Discrimination.