The paper aims at interpreting Elaine Showalter's idea of the female as formulated in her theories. It is basically concerned with her female tradition and what she calls in her essay Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness two distinct modes of criticism i.e. Feminist critique and Gynorcriticism. It will also undertake a study of Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence in the light of Elaine Showalter's categories. The first section of the paper will critically analyze Showalter's categories of - Feminine, Feminist, Female - with the help of the available scholarship. The second section will focus upon the analysis of That Long Silence and it will also explore the extent to which Showalter's idea of the three types of female reflects in the female characters of That Long Silence. The last section would gather the findings and make generalizations that are warranted