16. KAMALA DAS POEMS (An introduction and Old Playhouse)- for TSPSC JL/DL
Biogrpahy:
Das was born into a high-status family. Her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma, was a well-known poet, and her father, V.M. Nair, was an automobile company executive and a journalist. She grew up in what is now Kerala and in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where her father worked. She began writing poetry when she was a child. When she was 15 years old, she married Madhava Das, a banking executive many years her senior, and they moved to Bombay (now Mumbai). Das had three sons and did her writing at night.
Das’s poetry collections included Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967), and The Old Playhouse, and Other Poems (1973). Subsequent English-language works included the novel Alphabet of Lust (1976) and the short stories “A Doll for the Child Prostitute” (1977) and “Padmavati the Harlot” (1992). Notable among her many Malayalam works were the short-story collection Thanuppu (1967; “Cold”) and the memoir Balyakalasmaranakal (1987; “Memories of Childhood”). Perhaps her best-known work was an autobiography, which first appeared as a series of columns in the weekly Malayalanadu, then in Malayalam as Ente Katha (1973), and finally in English as My Story (1976). A shockingly intimate work, it came to be regarded as a classic. In later life Das said that parts of the book were fictional.
In 1999 she controversially converted to Islam, renaming herself Kamala Surayya. She received many literary awards, including the Asian World Prize for Literature in 1985.
Poem 1. An Introduction
Introduction to An Introduction by Kamala Das
The poem An
Introduction is an autobiographical verse of Kamala Das that throws light on
the life of a woman in the patriarchal society. I have divided the poem into
five parts for better understanding. I have tried to first give a brief
explanation to the lines and then provide a comprehensive analysis.
Hope you may go
through the poem and understand its central idea.
☞ Men as the Rulers of Country
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 poet starts
explaining by saying that she doesn’t know the politics yet she is well aware
of the politicians of her country from Nehru to the ones of her own times.
And as the
politics of the India has always remained in fewer hands (of males) she has
memorised the names of all the politicians like the days of the week or the
names of the month.
The lines depict
how the males have been ruling the country without giving this right to the
women. Moreover the rulers are fewer in numbers because democracy exists only
in words. In reality the rule of the country remains in the hands of some people only who have
assumed themselves to be the permanent rulers.
☞ Women are Individuals As Well
I am Indian, very
brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three
languages, write in
Two, dream in
one.
Now the poet
comes towards her own life experience. She says that she is an Indian and brown
in colour (as compared to the British). She is born in Malabar. She can speak
three languages, write in two and dreams in one as the dreams have universal
language.
In these lines
she explains her Indianness. Like most of the citizens of India, she is also
capable of speaking three languages and writing in two probably the English and
her native language.
She says that she
dreams in one, because the world of dreams is common to all. In this world
every individual, male or female, uses the same universal language.
In my opinion
these lines can be interpreted in another way as well. The poet perhaps try to
show her ability in the educational sphere which is no accessible to most of
the women. She says that she speaks three languages and is also capable of
writing in two.
In addition is
also dreams like any man of the world. She probably compares herself to the man
of the world trying to show that she is no lesser then him.
She possesses all
those qualities and abilities that makes him superior. Hence, though she is a
woman, she is no lesser than him in terms of ability, passion and creativeness.
Moreover in the
world of dreams, she is equally an individual as the man is and so she wants
this status in the real world as well.
☞ Poet’s Struggle for Freedom
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?
Being well
familiar with the English she uses this language in her writings. However this
habit of her is not liked by her friends, relatives and critics.
They all condemn
her for writing in English as according to them English is the language of the
colonists. She asks them why they criticise her. Why she is not given liberty
to write in whatever language she desires.
In these lines
she exposes the jealous nature of her nears and dears who cannot endure her
skills. This makes them to criticise her.
Having no logical
reason to put restrictions upon her writing in English, they try to tell her
that the language she writes in, is the language of Colonists and thus she
should avoid using it.
However she asks
them how a language can be owned by particular community. It belongs to very
person who uses it and thus she should not be stopped from using it.
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?
The language in
which she writes is her own along with all its imperfections and strangeness.
The language is, though not fully English yet she considers it to be honest
because like her as her language is also imperfect like her which a quite normal
thing is.
in these lines,
she shows her ownership of the English and also the freedom of using it. She is
imperfect but this makes her a human. Thus she should not be scolded over her
mistakes or shortcoming.
But she wonders
why the society ignores the mistakes or even blunders of men and questions the
mistakes of women though the fact is that ever person in the world is
imperfect.
It voices my
joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is
useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or
roaring to the lions, 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
Incoherent
mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre.
The language
expresses her joys, grief and hopes. For her it is like cawing is to crows and
roaring is to lions i.e. it is the integral part of her expression.
☞ Her Miserable Married Life
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
She moves towards
her married 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. As she was still a
child (after marriage) she asked for love. However her husband quenched his own
lust on the bed.
The poet here not
only describes her married life but tries to narrate the story of every woman
in her country. Her grieves and sorrows are the grieves and sorrows of every
woman of her country.
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 that they they cannot accept that
they have grown up.
However as their
body parts including the genitals grow up, they have to accept that they are mature
now and thus have bind into the nuptial alliance.
They girl after
being married desire that her husband should show compassion to her and love
her. But instead she is drawn to the bed and made to endure the pains of sex
that she is not willing to do.
He did not beat
me
But my sad
woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my
breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank
Pitifully.
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.
Then … I wore a
shirt and my
Brother’s
trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness.
Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they
said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller
with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the
categorizers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep
in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be
Kamala. Or, better
Still, be
Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a
role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at
schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry
embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love …
To avoid its
load, she tried to become a tomboy by adopting the attire of males. But it was
not led by her in-laws. They started taunting her. She was commanded to dress
in sarees, be a girl, wife, embroiderer, cook, quarreller with servants etc.
She was asked not to hide her real-self. Her in-laws even commanded to remain
silent and endure her unachieved love.
The lines expose
the condition of a woman in the house of her in-laws. She is forced to give up
her frankness and attain the nature of a daughter-in-law. She is forced to do
every thing that her in-laws desire her to do. She has to accomplish all the
tasks though she is not willing to do so.
Still she is
taunted, scolded as well as abused. She is even advised not express her grief
if she is troubled y her married life.
☞ Her Struggle for the Status of ‘I’
I met a man,
loved 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. Who are
you, I ask each and everyone,
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. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks 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.
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. When she
asks him about his identity, his answer is ‘I’.
This ‘I’ or the
‘male-ego’ gives him liberty to do whatever he likes. He can drink in midnight,
laugh, and satisfy his lust. However he feels ashamed after losing a woman due
to his own shortcomings and also this ego of ‘I’ dies when the person dies and
thus his end is no different than the end of woman.
I am sinner,
I am saint. I am
the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have
no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are
not yours. I too call myself I.
Hence like him,
she can also attribute the title of ‘I’ to herself. 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’.
Kamala Das' An Introduction: line by line analysis
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 (Lines 1-3)
The poetess is
ignorant of politics but she knows the names of those in power instinctively
and is capable of repeating them easily. It shows the poetess gets alarmed of
politics especially the politics of power in which Nehru strikes her mind, not
her daughter. One point is clear that the male dominates in the arena of
politics. In the following lines she focuses on the motherland and mother
tongue:
I am Indian, very brown, born in
Malabar, I speak three languages, write in
Two dream in one (Lines 4-6)
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 asserts
her choice to write in English despite social restrictions:
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 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
Hope and it is useful to me as cawings
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, (Lines
6-17)
The poetess
prefers to write in English despite the objections of her friends, cousins and
critics. She categorically 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; hence she chooses even
if it looks funny to her or her readers. Das speaks on the nature of human
speech:
.... 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. (Lines 17-23)
The poetess
distinguishes human speech from the other modes of communication of natural
phenomena or sad human event like funeral. The primary function of human speech
is to create awareness; it is neither blind nor deaf. She echoes the views of
the linguists that language conditions consciousness. Perhaps this function of
language impels the poetess to rebel against male domination and subordination
of woman in a patriarchal society. She writes:
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. (Lines 23-31)
The poetess sheds
light upon the temporal sequence of growth and maturity of hers who represents
every woman. She candidly writes about the process of maturity and
manifestation of changes in woman’s body. 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. 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. She writes:
.... I wore shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and
ignored
My womanliness. (Lines 31-33)
The author goes for masculinization of her
famine body. She puts on her brother’s trousers, cuts her hair short and
ignores womanliness. She gets instructions from the kith and kin:
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. (Line 33-38)
In Indian
traditional society women are 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. The basic principle is that they should adjust themselves
to the surroundings. Even their gestures, postrures and movements are
controlled and directed by male members. The picture of the conservative
society in which women are passive and submissive is brought out in the above
passage. There are many don’ts that Indian married women are to follow. The
poetess writes:
Don’t play
pretending games.
Don’t play at schizopherenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love.... (Lines 40-43)
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.
The author who is
educated and progressive in her mentality narrates her own experience:
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. (Lines 43-48)
The natural
desire of man and woman is to fall in love with each other but the way woman
feels loved is different from the way man feels loved; the distinction in
tendency is due to different psyche. The poetess uses metaphors just to show
the way man or woman chooses to be loved. 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.
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. (Lines 48-52)
‘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. She writes:
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. (Lines 52-58)
In the above
passage 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:
I have no joys
which are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours.
I too call myself I. (Lines 58-59)
The above passage
reflects on a kind of love in which the lovers lose as well as retain their
identity. Here the poetess advocates a kind of relation between lover and
beloved which John Donne would say ‘two legs of a compass’.
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.
Poem 2.The Old Playhouse
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. 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. 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. 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.
The Old Playhouse --by Kamala Das
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.
Imagery used in
The Old Playhouse
Kamala Das has
used very suggestive imagery to show the disastrous effects of the mismatched
marital relationships in The Old Playhouse. The word ‘sparrow’ stands for the
poetess who is captured by her cruel and heartless captor (husband) who denies
her any identity or freedom. The images of ‘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 of’ is equally very appropriate and
suggestive.
Both are in a
state of neglect and have lost their functional value. The poet’s mind is in a
state of inertial and filled with impenetrable darkness like the darkness
prevailing in the deserted old playhouse. The image of 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.
The image of
mirror is very relevant because it faithfully mirrors the loneliness and
anxieties of her face. The images of the ‘kind night’ and ‘to erase the water’
suggest that only death can help her in overpowering her mood of depression and
loneliness.
The Old Playhouse Analysis
You planned to
tame a swallow, to hold her
(…)
Pathways of the
sky.
In the poem, The
Old Playhouse, which can be read in full here, 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. He has intentionally done it so that she cannot only forget the fury
of the winter and autumn seasons but also snap all her ties with the life
before marriage. 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.
It was not to
gather knowledge
(…)
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 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.
Cowering
(…)
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. 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.
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.
There is
(…)
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.
Short Summary of “The Old Playhouse” by Kamala Das
The most
recurrent theme in Kamala Das’s poetry, as pointed out in the foregoing pages
is love, rather the failure of love or the absence of love in a woman who
strives for it in a loveless male world, for she can realize her being only
through love. Like most of her poems on love and sex, this poem is
characterised by an emotional intensity arising from a deep sense of betrayal,
from the feeling that she has been damned to a life of imprisonment in a
male-dominated world. Kamala Das has been accused of indifference to structure
and syntactical order but in this poem one finds a conciseness and tightness
of structure achieved by a network of concrete images which account for the
success of the poem and also make the experience recorded in the poem transcend
the personal level and become one with which every reader can empathies.
Old Playhouse
11.1-5: The
speaker’s husband, far from meeting her need for self- fulfilment through love,
has crippled the “swallow” which has been accustomed to a life of freedom.
11.5- 7: What the
speaker needed was not sexual gratification through man but self-realization
through love. But alas! She has met only with disappointment.
11.7- 11: Her
experience with her husband has been only one of lust.
11.12- 15: The
speaker feels that her married life was reduced to a mere surrender to the male
ego. The wife is known only by her functions, well-defined and stipulated. The
male ego domineering is presented here in a compact image and succeeds in
giving the feeling that the very air reeks of it. Kamala Das has often been
compared to well-known confessional poets of the West, like Sylvia Plath and
Anne Sexton and this poem reminding us as it does of Plath’s ‘The Applicant”,
almost out-Sextons Sexton in conveying the strong feeling that the egocentric
and egotistical husband has made the marriage union one of serfdom and meek
submission to exercises of lust.
11.19-22: Note
the description of the suffocating atmosphere of the room in which she has been
imprisoned. The husband’s monstrous ego kills all her reason and deprives her
of her will and reason.
11.23-25: 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.
11.27-30: For,
love is Narcissus… to erase the water. Love is perhaps no more than a way of
learning about one’s self and its reward an insight not into another’s being
but really into one’s own. Narcissus was the legendary youth who fell in love
with his own image reflected in a fountain thinking it to be the nymph of the
place. His fruitless attempts to approach this beautiful object drove him to
despair and death
The Old
Playhouse, 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.
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