16. KAMALA DAS POEMS
(An Introduction and The Old Playhouse)
for APPSC TGPSC TREIRB JL/DL
Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; Thrissur,
Kerala, 31 March 1934 – died, Pune, 31 May 2009)
Kamala Das (known as Mother of
Malayalam Literature) was an Indian poet, novelist, and
short story writer who wrote openly and frankly about female sexual desire and
the experience of being an Indian woman. She was born as Kamala, known by her pen name- Madhavi Kutty, her married name Kamala Das; and converted to Islam in 1999 and changed her name as Kamala Surayya. She is confessional poet (like Robert Lowell,
Silvia Plath, Anne Sexton….).
Her literary works, written equally
well both in English and Malayalam, spanned several genres, and she is often
hailed as one of India's most prominent and controversial literary figures.
‘The mother of Modern
Indian English poetry’- by Times Magazine.
Kamala Das was born in a conservative
Hindu Nair family, a circumstance that greatly influenced her understanding of
societal expectations and gender roles. Her father, V. M. Nair, was a managing
editor of the widely circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi, and her mother, Nalapat
Balamani Amma, was a well-known Malayalam poet. She grew up in what is now
Kerala and in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where her father worked. She received a
private education till she was 15, and was given in marriage at 16. She married
Madhava Das, a banking executive (an R.B.I. Officer) many years her senior, and
they moved to Bombay (now Mumbai). She had three sons.
Kamala Das began writing poetry at the
age of 6. She was only 14 when P.E.N. India published her first poem. The most
common themes in Kamala Das's Works are Female Sexuality and Desire, Identity
and Self-Exploration, Critique of Patriarchy, and Religion and Spirituality
Perhaps her best-known work was an
autobiography, in Malayalam, Ente Katha (1973), and in English, My Story (1976). A shockingly intimate
work, it came to be regarded as a classic.
In the 1970s, she entered the
political arena and served as a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. From
1971 to ‘72 and again from 1978 to ‘79, she was the poetry editor of The
Illustrated Weekly of India.
She received many literary awards, Kerala
Sahitya Akademi Award 1968- for Story – Thanuppu; and Kendra Sahitya Academy Award 1985
(English) for– Collected Poems; and Asian Poetry Prize in 1998. She was also nominated
for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984.
On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a
hospital in Pune, after a long battle with pneumonia. She was buried at the
Palayam Juma Masjid at Thiruvanathapuram with full state honour.
Poetry:
1. Summer in Calcutta 1965- 1st book
of 50 poems. debut in the world of English literature. The poems in this collection
explore themes of love, desire, and the complexities of human relationships.
a.
Dance of Eunuchs is the first poem in the collection- Das
sympathises with eunuchs.
b.
An Introduction- poem- She can
speak three languages, write in two, dream in one. She says that she doesn’t
know politics, she discusses her puberty, marriage, sex in her life boldly.
Ends with “I too call myself I”
c.
A Hot Noon in
Malabar- is a poem about climate, surrounding in a town in Malabar. The people
may be annoyed by the heat, dust and noise but she likes it.
d.
My Grandmother’s
house- poem- autobiographical poem in which the poet’s longing for her
parental house in Malabar, ruined after death of her grandmother.
e.
The Wild
Bougainvillea- philosophical poem that shows the extension of life after death. It ends
on a note of optimism
2. The Descendants 1967- 2nd
book of 23 poems- Kamala Das continued to look into the intricacies of emotions
and relationships. Her poems are marked by a confessional style that lays bare
her personal experiences.
3. The Old Playhouse, and Other Poems (1973)– 3rd
book of 33 poems, This collection is
known for its exploration of the female psyche and the challenges women face
within the confines of societal expectations.
a.
The Old Playhouse
1973: discovers love making has made her mind old playhouse. She feels like a
sparrow captured by husband, feels only death can help her.
4.
Tonight, this Savage Rite: The Love Poems of
Kamala Das and Pritish Nandy (1979) – collection of 34 poems
5.
Collected Poems 1984- volume-1
6.
Anamalai Poems 1985- depressed after the parliament election results-1984 (contensted from
thiruvanthapuram constituency) and took rest at her sister's house in Anamalai
hills.
7.
The Best of Kamala Das- 1991- collection of poems
8.
Only the Soul Knows How to Sing (1996): Kamala Das's exploration of themes like love, identity, and
spirituality. It showcases her evolving perspective on life and relationships.
9. My Mother at Sixty-Six (1999) -poem is set en route the airport from the poet’s parents’ house. explores
the irony in a mother-daughter relationship, and it also includes the themes of
aging, growing-up, separation and love.
10. Closure: Some
Poems and a Conversation (2009)- collaborative work with Suresh Kohli.
It includes poems by both and a conversation between the two.
Prose:
1. Ente Katha 1973 (published in English
as My Story 1976) -Autobiography,
written in Malayalam, translated to English. My Story was
supposed to be an autobiography, Das later admitted that there was plenty of
fiction in it. The book provides a raw and unfiltered narrative of her
experiences as a woman in a conservative society. She wrote it when she was
ill, and thought she will not survive. The book, with 50 chapters, follows
Aami's (Kamala) life from age four through racist discrimination innmissionary
schools in Calcutta, her relationship with her husband; her sexual awakening;
her literary career; extramarital affairs; the birth of her children. Ente Katha was serialised in 1972 in
Malayalanadu weekly.
2. Alphabet of Lust 1976 -her famous
novel. The main character of the novel is a poet Manasi. She has a daughter
Suparna, who is studying in a collage at Lucknow. Her husband is an exploited
government employee and she is an unhappy wife. Manasi uses Vijay Raje, a
corrupt minister, as a ladder to reach to Prime Minister, another lustful
widower. She uses her sexual card to win Padmashri and ascends the success as a
cabinet minister. Kamala Das expresses her feministic views through her
character Manasi.
3. Short stories:
a.
“A Doll for the
Child Prostitute” (1977)
b.
“Padmavati the
Harlot and Other Stories” (1992).
4.
Notable Malayalam
works:
a.
Thanuppu (1967;
“Cold”)- the short-story collection
b.
Balyakalasmaranakal
(1987; “Memories of Childhood”).- the memoir
An Introduction (1965)
Background/Context:
Kamala
Das’ An Introduction is an autobiographical and confessional poem
that voices out her concern about gender bias, patriarchy, starting from
politics to sexual politics. The poem expresses some incidents of her life, her
rejection of patriarchal norms, and her rebellion against the gender role as
well.
It is published in her first English poetry collection Summer in Calcutta (1965). It is a sixty-one-line poem that is contained within a single stanza. It has no specific metrical pattern/ proper rhyme, written in free verse. The meaning of one line is carry forwarded to another, (enjambemnt) making the whole poem runs as a single portion of a speech. Anaphora repetition of one word or line is seen (“I” is repeated several times in the poem.)
Short Summary:
The poet begins the poem with one
aspect of Indian politics. There is little space for women in Indian politics.
Though she does not know politics, she can repeat the names of politicians.
Just as days of the week or names of months are repetitive, the names of Indian
politicians are repetitive, all are male. There are very few names of women on
the list.
After politics, she comes to talk
about her introduction. She can write in two languages: Malayalam and English.
But the critics, her friends, and cousins don’t like her for writing in
English. They prohibit her because English is a foreign language.
In response to that, she asks everyone
to leave her alone and give her the freedom to write in any language she likes.
Writing in a colonial language like English does not mean she must follow the
standardized form of the language.
Like language, the agents of
patriarchy also come forward to impose norms of the society. They make her
realize that she is grown up, and this implies that she is ready for marriage.
When she feels the need for love, her family and relatives forcefully fix her
marriage with a youth of sixteen.
In her married life, she undergoes
pain and suffering. Consequently, she starts to feel repulsive toward her
womanliness and rejects her womanliness.
Seeing the change in her, the agents
of patriarchy again remind her of the roles that she needs to follow.
Indifferent to them, she goes on to search for love. She falls in with a man.
He is every man who wants a woman, and she is every woman who seeks love.
She asks everyone their identity, and
the answer is ‘I’. In pursuing the ‘I’, she identifies with every woman who is
having different experiences in life.
Themes:
1. Identity and Self-Expression: The
poem is a powerful assertion of the poet’s individual identity—as a woman, a
writer, and a human being. The poem challenges
patriarchal norms that define women’s roles (wife, mother) and asserts the
speaker’s right to self-expression. "I am sinner, I am
saint"
2. Gender and Patriarchy: Das
critiques the restrictive gender norms in Indian society. She exposes how women
are silenced and expected to conform: “Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or better / Still,
be Madhavikutty.”
3. Language and Power: Language
becomes a symbol of identity and resistance. Critics mocked her for writing in
English, but she defends it as her own voice: “The language I speak / Becomes
mine.”
4. Rebellion and Defiance: The
poem is a bold rejection of traditional gender roles . She embraces her
desires and autonomy: “"Dress in sarees, be girl / Be wife, they
said... I wore a shirt and my brother’s trousers, cut my hair short
and ignored my womanliness.”
5. Female Sexuality and Desire: She
openly discusses love, longing, and heartbreak, breaking the taboo around women
expressing desire. Her confession of seeking love in unfamiliar men is both
honest and defiant. "The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me"
Motifs/Symbols:
1. The "I" (First-Person Voice): Repeated
several times, the "I" symbolizes unapologetic selfhood and
resistance. It transformed the poem into a manifesto of individuality.
2. Language and Speech: Motif
of silence vs. speech reflects oppression and liberation. "Why not let me
speak in / Any language I like?" – Demands linguistic freedom.
3. Clothing and Nakedness: Sarees
vs. "shirt and pants" symbolize enforced femininity vs. rebellion. "Nakedness"-
represents raw, unfiltered truth.
Line by line Summary
Lines 1-3
I don’t know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning
with Nehru
The
poetess is ignorant of politics yet she is well aware of the politicians of her
country from Nehru to the ones of her own times.
It shows the poetess has memorised the names
of all the politicians like the days of the week or the names of the month.
One
point is clear that the male dominates in the arena of politics as the remained
in fewer hands, especially the politics of power in which Nehru strikes her
mind, not her daughter.
Lines 4-6
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one
The
poetess claims that India is her motherland; her colour is brown, very brown
not fair. She is born in Malabar and speaks three languages, her own mother
tongue, Malayalam; national language, Hindi and global language, English.
She
can speak three languages, write in two and dreams in one. She is a woman, she
is no lesser than him in terms of ability, passion and creativeness.
Lines 7-11
Don’t write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins.
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like?.....
The
poetess prefers to write in English but her friends, cousins and critics
condemn her for writing in English. According to them English is the language
of the colonists, not her mother tongue.
But she thinks there is no logical reason to
put restrictions, and asking her avoid using it.
She radically questions them, why she is not
given liberty to write in whatever language she desires.
Lines 11-18
……..The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English half Indian, funny perhaps,
but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don’t
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes and it is useful to me as cawings
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, ……..
The
language she uses is her own, along with its imperfections and strangeness. Both
Kamala Das and her language are imperfect, but the languge makes her human. She
wonders why the society ignores the mistakes of men and questions the mistakes
of women.
She
uses language to express her sorrows-joys, wishes, and dreams. Her usage of
language is compared to cawing of crows and roaring of lions.
She has acquired literary competence to
express her longings in English; hence she chooses even if it looks funny.
Lines 18-24
............ it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that
is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of
rain or the
In coherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. ……………….
The
poetess distinguishes human speech from the other modes of communication.
The primary function of human speech is to
create awareness; it is neither blind nor deaf. It is the speech of humans that
can understand the sounds of trees in the storms or of monsoon clouds or of
rain or of the sound of funeral pyre (dead)
In
fact, this languge is useful for the poetess to rebel against subordination of
woman in a patriarchal society.
Lines 24-32
………………. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
When I asked for love, not knowing what else
to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door. He did not beat
me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I sharnk / Pitifully.
She
moves towards the process of maturity, i.e., changes in woman’s body and her
marital life. She was a child though the size of her body grew up i.e. she
entered into the stage of puberty, yet her soul was immature. The poet
describes the story of every woman in her country.
When
a girl gets maturity she longs for love. In a traditional society like India
she gets married to a man who is inexperienced in the art of love making and is
in dark about the psyche of woman.
The
young girls of her country are forced to marry old men without having their
consent. They are so young at the time of their marriage.
The
girl after being married desires that her husband should show love and
compassion to her. But instead, she is drawn to the bed and made to endure the
pains of sex that she is not willing to do.
She says that she was not beaten by him yet
her womanly body felt to be beaten and wounded and thus she got tired of it
(her body). He genitals seemed to her as some burden that have crushed her. She
started hating her female body because it is her body that has given her so
much pain.
Hence
in Das’s first sexual encounter with he husband she gets irritated and feels
that in matters of sex male dominates. This sense of subordination makes her a
rebel.
Lines 33-35
Then ... I wore shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and
ignored
My womanliness. …….
To
avoid its load, she tried to become a tomboy by adopting the attire of males. She
puts on her brother’s trousers, cuts her hair short and ignores womanliness. But
it was not led by her in-laws. They started taunting her.
Line 35-42
…………. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorisers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name. a role. ……………..
She
was instructed to put on sarees; as wives they are to play different roles; the
roles of an embroiderer, a cook, a quarreller with servants and so on. She is
forced to give up her frankness and attain the nature of a daughter-in-law. She
is forced to do everything, though she is not willing to do so. These lines
explore the condition of a woman in the house of her in-laws.
In
Indian traditional society, even women’s gestures, postrures and movements are
controlled and directed by male members. There are many don’ts that Indian
married women are to follow.
Lines 42-45
…………………. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at schizopherenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love....
In
the conservative Indian society women have little freedom in the matters of
sexuality and expression of feminine frivolity and pretension. It is said that
when a woman says no she means perhaps; when she says perhaps she means yes;
when she says yes she is not a woman at all. But in traditional Indian society
women are not allowed for such kind of expressions; they cannot express their
sexuality freely and frankly.
Lines 45-50
……………… I met a man, love him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him...the hungry
haste
Of rivers, in me.... the oceans’ tireless
Waiting. …………
The
poetess uses metaphors just to show the way man or woman chooses to be loved. She meets a man (whose name she does not
mention). The man is, according to her, everyman who desires a woman (to quench
his lust) as a woman desires love from man.
The
‘hungry haste of rivers’ points to impulsive love of male and patient love of
females. In matters of love Mrs. Das feels that woman is superior to man; that
is why she uses ocean in the context
of woman and river in context of man.
Das demolishes male’s supremacy in the matters of relationship.
Lines 50-54
…………… Who are you, I ask each and every one,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I,
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. ………….
When
she asks him about his identity, his answer is ‘I’. Here, ‘sword in its sheath’
refers to the passivity of male in matters of sex and love. Woman is no longer
weaker sex because it is the stronger sex which has weakness for it. Das is
against sexual inhibition and reservation.
Lines 54-60
………………… It is I who drink lonely
Drink at twelve, midnight, in hotels of
strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. ………………….
Das
throws light upon the role of woman in a permissive society. In a permissive
society woman has unbridled freedom. She drinks, makes love, laughs and also
does not feel hesitant to feel repentant on some occasions. She can visit the
strange towns and can make love to the strangers; what matters is her sexual
appeal. She often feels loved, sometimes betrayed. Thus the poetess demolishes
male chauvinism. In the concluding lines of the poem the speaker focuses on
empathy - the caring and sharing that characterise the lives of the lovers:
Lines 60-61
…………….I have no joys which are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself
I.
It
reflects on a kind of love in which the lovers lose as well as retain their
identity.
Thus a feminist reading of An Introduction
would bring to light three kinds of women in three types of society; the
dependent women in a conservative society where ‘woman body’ feels ‘beaten’;
the independent women in a permissive society where women are ‘beloved and
betrayed’ and the interdependent woman in the progressive society where ‘joys
and aches’ are equally shared by men and women.
Like
men she is also sinner and saint, beloved and betrayed. Her joys and pains are
no different than those of men. Hence, she emancipates herself to the level of
‘I’.
The Old Playhouse (1973) |
Background/Context.
The Old Playhouse is a 30 line poem,
published in 1973 in The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, is a poem
of protest against patriarchy in which
Kamala Das voices against the domination of the male and the consequent
dwarfing of the female. The poetess expresses the common expectations of the
male dominated Indian society. In the male dominated society a women is expected to play certain
conventional roles, and her own wishes and aspirations are not taken into
account.
The title of the poem, The Old Playhouse, constitutes its central image, and the speaker finally discovers that love-making has made her mind ‘an Old Playhouse with all its lights put out’. It is like a deserted old playhouse having no life of its own. It has almost become non-functional and inert due to the disastrous physical-cum-mental strains. She has lost all her value as a woman in this life of confinement and suffocation.
Short Summary.
The poem is written in the first
person point of view. The persona in this poem is a woman, who gives an account
of her unsatisfactory and disappointing conjugal life with her husband. She
compares herself to a swallow and her husband a captor
who wanted to tame her and keep her fully under his control by the power of his
love-making.
The husband wanted to make her forget
all those comforts which she might have enjoyed in her home before being
married; but, in addition to that, he wanted also make her forget her very
nature and her innate love of freedom by keeping her in a state of subjection
to him.
The speaker says that she had come to
her husband with a view to developing her own personality. But all she has had
from her husband are lesson about him. Her husband, who is a self-centered
person, makes love with her and he feels pleased by her bodily response to his
love-making. He approves her state of mind and her mood when he makes love to
her and he feels pleased by the tremors of her body during the sexual union.
He, however, fails to understand that
her response to his love-making is purely physical and ,therefore, superficial
because she never experiences any feeling of oneness with him. According to the
speaker, the notions of love and affection mean nothing to her husband. To him
she is nothing but a plaything, a sexual partner and a housewife. In the course
of the sexual union, he kisses her very hard , pressing his lips against hers
and letting his saliva flow into her mouth. He presses her whole body against hers
with great vehemence, gratifying his sexual desire in this process.
In this physical union, her husband is
successful as he is able to penetrate every part of her body and make his
bodily fluids mingle with hers. But he never realizes that she is still
emotionally unsatisfied and hungry. In the emotional and spiritual sense,
he completely fails.
The
husband’s monstrous ego kills all her reason and deprives her of her will and
reason. The stifling, crippling atmosphere of her husband’s house with its
male-dominated setting has made her lose her zest for life. Her life has now become
an old playhouse where, with all its lights put out, the zest for life has
gone.
Themes
1. Marital Oppression & Loss of Self: The
poem critiques patriarchal marriage as a cage that suffocates female identity. "You
planned to tame a swallow, to hold her / In the long summer of your love"
– The husband's attempt to control reduces the wife to a pet.
2. Female Sexuality & Disillusionment: Contrasts
the speaker's youthful sexual curiosity with the sterile reality of marital
duty. Her individuality is suppressed by her husband’s authority and
self-centeredness.
3. Nature vs. Domesticity: Wild,
natural imagery clashes with the stifling "playhouse" of marriage.
4. Emotional Abandonment: The
husband's indifference leaves the speaker spiritually hollow. "You
dribbled spittle into my mouth" – Love is forced, not shared.
Symbols
1. The Old Playhouse: Represents
the domestic space that traps the speaker. Once imagined as a space for love
and joy, it turns into a symbol of emotional imprisonment.
2. Swallow/Bird: Symbolizes
freedom, movement, and lightness. Her being “tamed” implies the loss of those
qualities in marriage. The word ‘sparrow’ stands for the poetess who is
captured by her cruel and heartless captor (husband) who denies her any
identity or freedom.
3. Mirror: The
mirror reflects not just her physical change but the loss of identity: The
image of mirror is very relevant because it faithfully mirrors the loneliness
and anxieties of her face.
4. ‘summer’ and ‘autumn’ show
the bright and dark phases of her life. The comparison between the poet’s mind
and the ‘old playhouse with lights put out’ is equally very appropriate and suggestive.
5. Narcissus -shows
that Kamala Das’s love for her husband is all shattered by her egotistical
husband and she is haunted by her own face which is reflective of her
loneliness and desolation.
According to the story in Ovid’s
Metamorphosis, Narcissus is a hunter and beautiful young man (Greek
legendary) who rejected the advances of all women, instead fell in love with
his own image reflected in a pool of water. His love for himself was so deep
that he couldn’t leave his reflection behind, even to eat or drink. His
fruitless attempts to approach this beautiful object drove him to despair and
death, giving rise to the narcissus flower.
Line by line Summary
Line1-5
You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her
In the long summer of your love so that she
would forget
Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left
behind, but
Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the
endless
Pathways of the sky. ………..
Kamala
Das shows her total disenchantment with her married her married life and its
disastrous consequences on her life. It is an open protest against her
egotistical husband who does not think beyond the gratification of his sensual
desires. The female persona accuses her husband for domesticating her like a swallow after marriage in a well-planned
manner.
She
also blames him for depriving her of the thrills of romantic love and the
desired woman’s freedom. She was forced to live in the long summer of his love and forced to forget winter and autumn seasons. He has spared no
efforts to make her forget her colourful past in which she enjoyed perfect
freedom and distinct identity. He wants to make her forget her true nature as
well as the very desire to move about freely in the infinite spaces of the sky.
This
first section of the poem points to the disastrous fate of the mismatched
marriage. Marriage is not an institution limited to the gratification of the
sensual desires only. It is not a unilateral but a bilateral relationship based
on mutual-trust and mutual understanding. There is no place for the
exploitation and dehumanization of any partner in love.
He
put full stop to her dreams. She was considered as a mere toy for him. Being a
caged wife, she was put forth to live like his slave.
Line 5-14
………………. It was not to gather knowledge
Of yet another man that I came to you but to
learn
What I was, and by learning, to learn to grow,
but every
Lesson you gave was about yourself. You were
pleased
With my body's response, its weather, its
usual shallow
Convulsions. You dribbled spittle into my
mouth, you poured
Yourself into every nook and cranny, you
embalmed
My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices.
You called me wife,
I was taught to break saccharine into your tea
and
To offer at the right moment the vitamins. ………
In
this second section, the woman is critical of her feeling less husband for
shattering her romantic dreams of the married life. She has realized that she
is merely an object (toy) of physical entertainment meant for satisfying the
lustful desires of her husband only. She has lost
all her identity as a woman and is systematically alienated from her
happy and contented past life.
The
woman, in the poem, then explains the reason of marrying the man and the
intention behind forming this relationship. She had come to him not to be
enlightened about him but to learn about her true self. She thought that the
marriage would give her an opportunity for self-growth and self-discovery. But
all her hopes were belied because of the egotistical nature of her husband. She
found highly selfish and self-centred who could not think beyond himself.
Line 14-23
……….. Cowering
Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic
loaf and
Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to
all your
Questions I mumbled incoherent replies. The
summer
Begins to pall. I remember the rudder breezes
Of the fall and the smoke from the burning
leaves. Your room is
Always lit by artificial lights, your windows
always
Shut. Even the air-conditioner helps so
little,
All pervasive is the male scent of your
breath. The cut flowers
In the vases have begun to smell of human
sweat. ……..
In
this third section of the poem, the woman had a very horrifying experience of
the marital life. It marked the sudden end of the life of romantic aspirations
and dreams. She was almost overpowered by the monstrous ego of her husband. His
monstrous ego totally subjugated and
turned her into a dwarf as she is
surrended to his demands, performing all wifey duties. She lost the very will
to live in this hostile environment. She had also lost the chance of
self-growth and self-discovery. She was treated like an object of
sexual-gratification only.
Kamala
Das always felt terrified by the dreadful ego of her husband. She was meant to
please her self-conceited husband against her wishes to preserve this
relationship. It is in this process of unnatural appeasement she had lost her
al individuality and self-respect. She was almost reduced to a dwarf and lost all her will to think and act
in an independent manner. Being mentally disturbed, her responses and reactions
were always illogical and inconsistent. She had lost all her identity as a
dignified woman and felt totally dehumanized in this caged existence.
Again
imagery of Summer here, the rude breezes of the fall and burning leaves,
suffocated her in the Summer symbolized by the ‘smoke’ The artificial measures
to satisy her- artificial lights- air conditioners etc- did not help.
Kamala
Das’s marital life is all disturbed due to the overpowering and egotistical
nature of her husband. She is all alienated and frustrated in life because of
the indifferent attitude of her husband. She is denied all the needs of a woman
for self-growth and self-discovery. She is neglected by her husband who treats
her as an object for the satisfaction of his lust only.
Line 23-30
…………. There is
No more singing, no more dance, my mind is an
old
Playhouse with all its lights put out. The
strong man's technique is
Always the same, he serves his love in lethal
doses,
For, love is Narcissus at the water's edge,
haunted
By its own lonely face, and yet it must seek
at last
An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will
the mirrors
To shatter and the kind night to erase the
water.
In
this fourth section, the female persona has suffered both physically and
mentally at the hands of her self-centred and selfish husband. She has lost all
her freedom, self –respect and identity as a woman and is reduced to the level
of a dwarf. She has to work like a caretaker to satisfy his daily needs. She is
almost crushed under his unchallenged monstrous ego.
It
was a period of winter in her life. For Kamala Das, life has come to a
stand-still. All her romantic dreams of the marital life are shattered and she
faces a complete vacuum in her life. There is no space for singing or dancing
in her colourless and meaningless life. Her life is like an old playhouse
filled with impenetrable darkness. She is all fed up with the stereotyped and
mechanical technique of love-making of her husband. He
offers love in fatal dozes which will ultimately kill his wife.
The
Greek muth ‘Narcissus’ symbolizes
fall(desctruction) on account of the self love. The woman however would like to
strike against this self destructive aspect fo love, and win over the false
(mirrored) image of love.
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