Indian Lit CIA

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HIMANI MOCHARI

1224131

INDIAN LITERATURE

CIA 2

JULY 5 2013

APPLYING THEORY IN AN INDIAN TEXT:

-applying the feminist theories to Kamala Das poem.

Kamala Das was one of the first poets who developed a new form of poetry for themselves

and made a new start both in theme and technique around 1960‟s.To the poets of this era the

spirit of modernism was almost alien. Their main concern was the essence of nationalism and

the war of independence, partition of country. It was only in the sixties that things began to

change, a new group of young poets took control of the Indo-Anglican poetic domain.

Kamala Das is one of the most dominant voices of this post-colonial era. Kamala Das, in her

poetry portrays the best expression of feminine feeling, their suppression in a male dominated

society. Her poetry is confessional and auto-biographical to a large extent, but many a times

she universalizes what is personal.

This paper would try to identify the theories of feminism and post-colonialism in her poetry.

“An Introduction”, and “The Maggot” are two of her best known poems where she is

extremely conscious of herself as woman, the evils of the patriarchal society and through

writing about the self she challenges the accepted notions of the female and rewrite‟s general

opinion of the feminine mystique.

The poem, “An Introduction” by Kamala Das, has strong existentialist theory proposed by

Simone de Beauvoir in Second Sex. “De Beauvoir‟s primary thesis is that men fundamentally



oppress women by characterizing them, on every level, as the “Other ”, defined exclusively in

opposition to men. Man occupies the role of the self, or subject; woman is the object, the

other. He is essential, absolute, and transcendent. She is inessential, incomplete, and

mutilated. He extends out into the world to impose his will on it, whereas woman is doomed

to immanence, or inwardness.” We can identify this theory in her poems, where she shows

how women are considered inferior beings and are insignificant. The assertion of the self

against the various given social roles, identities and public norms in her poems is an indicator

of the existentialist leanings of the poet.

The opening statement in „ An Introduction‟, “I do not know Politics” has an ambiguous tone

that portrays women‟s marginalized position in the Indian society. Externally it seems as a

confession of ignorance, but it also masks an irony i.e. the society does not expect a woman

to deal in politics. She is never important in politics but just a victim of it and hence her

knowledge of the names that are in power has no impact of her personal life.

Then further in the poem she asserts her choice to write in English despite social restrictions

(lines 6-17). Here we can identify her as a post-colonial writer. She has assimilated the

language and uses it for her benefit, so she finds no fault in it as she has acquired literary

competence to express her longings in English. She prefers to write in English despite the

objections of her friends, cousins and critics. She firmly writes that languages should be

honest and human, as natural as the sounds of the animals like crow or lion. She has acquired

literary competence to express her longings in English.

In the light of feminist critical theory it can be said that Kamal Das has given Indian English

poetry, a new discourse, the discourse of woman‟s body language from the point of view of

woman. Kamala goes against male domination and subordination of woman in a patriarchal

society in this poem (An introduction).The theory first coined by Hélène Cixous i.e. écriture

féminine in her essay, "The Laugh of the Medusa" (1975), where she asserts "Woman must

write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have

been driven away as violently as from their bodies" because their sexual pleasure has been

repressed and denied expression. We can identify this theory in Kamala Das‟s poems. For

example: in An Introduction and The Maggot, most of her poems she writes about women‟s,

their body and their suffering in a male dominated world. In „ An Introduction’ (lines 23-38),

she describes the maturing of the female body, and how it is violated and abused by men and

also the social constraints on women‟s image, as to what is proper.



In her poem, „The Maggot ’ , from the collection, The Descendants, ―Das confirms just how

old the sufferings of women are. She frames the pain of lost love with ancient Hindu myths.

of Radha and Krishna- on their last night together, Krishna asks Radha if she is disturbed by

his kisses. Radha says,

“And she said, no, not at all, but thought, what is

it to the corpse if the maggots nip?”

Radha's pain is burning, and her silence is given voice by Kamala. Furthermore, by making a

powerful goddess victim to such thoughts, it serves as a validation for ordinary women to

have similar feelings. Here we see how Kamala feminist view. She portrays the suffering of

women and uses the myth of Radha and Krishna to universalize the idea of suffering of

women, in a relationship. The men remain unaffected, but that is not so in the case of women.

Kamala Das has always been bold and outspoken. Her chief contribution to modern Indian

poetry is that she has criticised the tradition-bound, patriarchal society and was far ahead of

many other Indian writers in her ideas and viewpoints. She not only is very frank in her

writing but also the decoding of the miseries and the information regarding woman‟s psychic

experience that was hidden for ages that makes her so interesting.

Therefor we can conclude by saying that Kamala Das largely applied the feminist theory

while writing. She created a new role for the women in society and lent her voice to the

subjects of loneliness and subaltern sufferings. By her act of defining female space; she

became a threat to the existing patriarchal space. Her writing opened a new area in the field

of post-colonial Indian English writing. Colonization is a side of patriarchy. Patriarchy and

colonization go hand in hand. Whites dominate the slaves and slaves dominate the women

who are colonized. Therefore post-colonial feminists say that women are doubly

marginalized and colonized. Kamala Das was a woman and also a poet. Conventional studies

have referred women to body and mind to men. However Kamala Das critiqued, mocked and

disrupted these representations by writing through her body and about her bodily needs. In

fact her writings become a celebration of the women‟s body through a typical writing of her

own. She is very post-colonial in the correct sense of the term as earlier poets had only

written poems in praise of country, nature etc. But Das has turned within, towards the self

and given voice to the otherwise crushed women‟s voice.



Reference:

An introduction by Kamala Das

The Maggot by Kamala Das

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir

"The Laugh of the Medusa" (1975) by Hélène Cixous.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory

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