LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:1 January 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Sociological Aspect of Body in Shashi Deshpande’s Novel
In the Country of Deceit

Shakuntla Bamal, M.A., M.Phil.

Abstract

This article aims at depicting the female body as a key site of political, social, cultural and economic forces. It illustrates that Shashi Deshpande as a modern woman writer gives relevance to female body in her writings. She reverses the dominant male gaze and moves the female body from the margin of the page to the center of the text, Deshpande destabilizes binary oppositions that are the root cause of oppression against women. She uses deconstruction method of ideological critique to comment at patriarchal thoughts and institutions. Female is still viewed as body and her body and sexuality is controlled by men. She takes up the theme of body to show that in modern times the power equation and ideology is re-defined and patriarchy is questioned and women obsessed with social victimhood are craving for sexual autonomy. Women are challenging the cultural norms to re-draw the patriarchal map. The author theorizes women’s resistance and proves that women are capable of asserting their subjectivities and claiming ownership over their bodies.

Our Body and Our Culture

I do not care about country’s problems. My country is my body and a revolution against it has taken place.-Mary Melfi, Infertility Rites (1991)

The body is the bearer of the human being and at the same time the expression of his/her existential condition. Individual and social biographies are represented in the body as the social and cultural circumstances in which it has developed. The body is a crucial site of political, social, cultural and economic intervention and a contested site on which struggles over control and resistance are fought out in contemporary society. Patriarchy and capitalism have many tools which create and maintain gender roles and relations in our societies. Women’s bodies constitute one of the most formidable tools for this purpose. Culture inscribes rules, images, symbols and even hierarchies which give shape and character to the female body. Culture, the law and the systems of education, all contribute in structuring women’s sexuality and desire through the engravings they carve on their bodies. Through the reproductive and sexual control of women’s bodies their subordination and continued exploitation is guaranteed.

Stifling Female Sexuality

For civilized society to develop, it is allegedly necessary or at least helpful for female sexuality to be stifled. Countless women have grown up and lived their lives with far less sexual pleasure than they would have enjoyed in the absence of this large-scale suppression. Socializing influences such as parents, schools, peer groups, and legal forces have cooperated to alienate woman from her own sexual desires. Society refuses to tolerate woman’s exercise of her agency, her choice and preference.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Shakuntla Bamal, M.A., M. Phil.
Assistant Professor in Sociology
S.M.R.J. Government College
Bhiwani - 127021
Haryana
India
gsaharan@gmail.com
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