Puntogf Antiques.

Radha Krishna

L’écriture feminine and Kamala Das

Anusuya Malakar. M.A.

(Eng), Gau, M.Phil.(Dib)

 

                 L’écriture feminine and Kamala Das

 

     In the field of feminism the French feminists, especially the deconstructionist theorists have created an upheaval and throughout the entire globe this has caused much debate. In India the aspect of developing a philosophy has remained much behind because of many multifaceted factors where illiteracy and poverty play insurmountable role. However, it is noteworthy that Kamala Das tackling the problem of women indigenously has achieved such heights which are in no way less than other internationally reputed figures only if one will try to take a look in the postmodern perspective. In the following passages a short sketch is given to this. ____________________________________________________________

     Women’s writing have become one of the most crucial subjects in defining the woman in the present day world. Deconstructing the Western philosophical stance French feminist critics like Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva are asserting the fact that a woman’s self and her visualization of herself is what would help to create the woman distinct from men? highlighting the differences that lie between them. They also believe that in doing this women would not cover up the differences in the individual men and women but would only bring them to writing in order to erase the homogenization and the objectification they have been marked with for centuries.

     Women’s body is the main site of oppression and therefore they should write their body without censoring it, “Censor the body and you censor your breadth,” writes Cixous in her seminal essay The Laugh of the Medusa on l’écriture feminine. Writing should be more from the body than from the brain implying that women should write without rationalizing their feelings, they should write with the force of the unconscious?which is a “reservoir” of tremendous energy. By creating a mode of writing which would be commanded by the force of the unconscious signifying woman’s irrationality women would not be evading from that with which they are marked i.e., as the negative. They would rather build their own territory from that space where they are pushed in to the margins. Marginality would be for them the most beneficial point of creating their work of art as a product of the affect of patriarchal dominance.

     Once it has been decided that women should write the question arose with what a woman would write. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue that a man writes with his pen which is nothing but a metaphor for the penis which is at the centre of the Symbolic order and is hence the power of patriarchal dominance and objectification of the female. Whereas it is a grave question for the woman with what would she write? Would the pen, in her case, stand as a metaphor to her breast? Because she has always given? fed her baby with the mother’s milk naturally she would in this case also use the same organ. The problem is where to locate that organ in her body which will metaphorically be at the back of her pen. This idea of locating the organ where woman’s sexuality can be detected has not been very much preferred by Kristeva who believes that woman’s sexuality is not location specific but is all over her body. Therefore unlike men whose sexuality is location specific she should know her whole body and then write it.

     Propagated by Hélène Cixous the concept of l’écriture feminine is a very recent one and there are still more paths to be treaded by the creative artists in this field of gynocentric literature but in India one of the most outshining writer can be said to have written in this mode. However it was not her conscious act of writing but now that the concept of women’s writing has become so seminal to her existence and identity

     Indian women can be proud of reading the ways in which Kamala Das locates the women in her language of poetry. A couple of poems by her sing the unfulfilled desire of women; the pain and suffering they bear as sexual objects; and the way they give up themselves despite of their unwillingness. The women in Das’s poetry sing their abyss which is very much what Cixous urges them to do. The Freaks in the collection Summer in Calcutta (1965) talk about the woman who is physically near her partner but whose presence is only darkness suggested by his dark mouth and “sun-stained cheeks,” his lack of vitality?an inertness that can only do idling. The woman has long suffered from this deprivation. There cannot be anyone to help as the man cannot unleash anything even if willing. This is the major cause of deprivation in the woman:

          “….The Heart

          An empty cistern,waiting

          Through long hours, fills itself

          With coiling snakes of silence”

[lines 14-17]

     The need of love for a woman has been stretched out from mythological figures in the poems of Das. The Maggots is one such poem appearing in her collection The Descendents (1967) which highlights the passionate love between Radha-Krishna in the same tone as can be found in the mythology.Radha craves for the love of Krishna in spite of the fact that she is married. Radha has been loved by Krishna for the last time and on the same night she is being loved by her husband:

          “That night in her husband’s arms,

            Radha felt

           So dead that he asked, what is wrong,

           Do you mind my kisses, love?”

[lines 3-5]

     Das brings in the compromising self of the woman who has always given herself. This poem brings in the contradictory selves of the woman in Radha which is common to most women in the world. Radha’s body is facing the crucial moment of colonization, in a way; it is also implicative of self exploitation which the woman cannot evade. The Looking Glass in the same collection as above begins with the line:

           “Getting a man to love you is easy”

[line 1]

which sets the tone how a woman can objectify the man if she desires him in her way. This is a very deconstructive attitude applied by Das but for this she should have to be honest about her “wants as a/Woman”. The woman stands equally with the man never hesitating about the gaze that would otherwise reduce her to an object. Symbolically she stands equal to the phallus without fear,without the slightest thought of being inferior:

           “….Stand nude before the glass with him

            So that he sees himself the stronger one

            And believes it so, and you much more

             Softer,younger,lovelier….

            Admit your Admiration.”

[lines 3-7]

     Hidden in these lines is the politics by which she can bring the man to the way she wants her. It is suggestive of the subversion of the power of Symbolic order. Das does not blur the differences which distinguish a man from a woman but uses the same difference to fulfill the woman’s desire:

          “….Gift him all,

          Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of

         Long hair, the musk sweat between the breast,

         The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

         Endless female hungers”

[lines 12-16]

     Das’s use of the biological imageries apart from bringing in the effect of the sensuousness speaks the desire of woman. Mere biological imageries are not played with for the sake of writing the body. They help deconstructing the body as has been viewed by males and as has been gazed by men. The imageries of “breast,” “menstrual blood” makes one realize the dormant power of the woman’s body. Proceeding to such bold representation of women Kamala Das introduces us to women who break barriers to fulfill their desire. The woman in The Stone Age of the collection The Old Play House and Other Poems (1973) does not have any more time to waste and is well attuned to urban life. She has found a way of going out from the house after her husband leaves. Her words ooze iout from the agony of the experience she receives from this man. Her husband for her is an “Old fat spider”- someone very repulsive weaving the web of bewilderment around her. He sits in a shabby room and reads(always with the symbol of male patriarchy) while stroking her face as if she is an object lying in that room for his amusement at times when he wishes her to touch. This behaviour sterilizes her, frigidifies her existence which she cannot bear:

              “….You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite

               Dove, you build around me a shabby room,

              And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while

             You read.”

[lines 3-6]

       The imageries invoke the freezing effect on the woman? “a bird of stone,” “a granite/Dove,” she gets turned to stone because of his objectifying behaviour towards her. And so she goes out to find the “strong men” in her dreams which is a desire that flows secretly within her:

               “Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.”

[line 10]

The “sacred cities” run parallel to the roles played by a woman. Apparently she is the wife of one man tied to him through the union of marriage but she has inherent desire to be free of him and get united with the man of her dreams. She is like the sacred cities beneath which the dirty drains flow. All these women in Kamala Das’s poetry are bold images who are different from each other thus exhibiting the multiplicity of women but beneath them scroll the sea of desire which Das brings out in her spurning language of poetry. The genre of poetry is being made apt for the expression of the woman and her desire?poetry is free flowing, comes from the realm of the unconscious from wherein it gathers its materials from past, present and imagination. Sexuality is one of the prime aspects of l’écriture feminine as it has been the point of negligence in women’s life for centuries. Das celebrates the pain by highlighting submission and surrender which constitute a woman’s lot in Indian society which has close affinities at the base with women everywhere. However in stating this no intention of homogenizing women is being intended which would be going against l’écriture feminine as it urges to bring in the varieties hidden in a single individual and everywhere outside.

About the Author

ANUSUYA MALAKAR

NATIONALITY: INDIAN

EDUCATION: M.A.[Eng], M. Phil.[Women and Writing]

DISSERTATION: Virginia Woolf and Ecriture Feminine: Mrs. Dalloway
and To the Lighthouse

EXPERIENCE: Teaching English Grammar and Literature; Legal
English. Public Relations, Content Developer, Writing
and Journal Editing.

AREA OF INTEREST: Womens’ Literature in India and Northeast India.

Blogging

AUTHORS OF INTEREST: French feminist Critics: Hélène Cixous, Julia
Kristeva, Luice Irigaray

AUTHOR WIDELY STUDIED: Virginia Woolf and Hélène Cixous

Age : 28 Years.

Sex: Female

Father: Mr. P. Malakar.

Mother: Mrs. S. M. Kennedy Malakar.

Languages Known:English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali.

Mobile No:+919957503026

Mail: a_malakar@live.com

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