LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:11 November 2017
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.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Kamala Das’s Poetry: A Feminist Perspective

Ishfaq Hussain Bhat, M.A.


Kamala Das 1934-2009
Courtesy: http://www.stateofkerala.in/kerala_celebrities/kamala-surayya.php

Abstract

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness.” (Adichie, 15)

Kamala Surayya (1934-2009), popularly known as Madhavikutty and Kamala Das, is beyond doubt the greatest woman poet in contemporary Indo-Anglian literature. Her poetic collection includes: Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967), The Old Playhouse And Other Poems (1973), The Anamalai Poems (1985), The Best of Kamala Das (1991) and Only Soul Knows How To Sing (1996). Kamala Das’s poetry is replete with feministic ethos. She repudiated the archaic and somewhat sterile aestheticism for an independence of mind and body. Her poetry conveys her aversion to male domination and to the artificialities of modern life in which she feels suffocated. Her poetry is remarkably realistic and feministic. The paper aims at a feminist reading of Kamala Das’s poetry whereby she effectively subverts the ingrained elements of patriarchy, privileging female will, choice and strength.

Keywords: patriarchy, feminine, misery, revolt, freedom.

Feminism

“There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
(Woolf, 76)

Feminism is a movement which tries to define and establish social, legal and cultural freedom and equality of women. Gender equality is at the core of feminist movement: it advocates women’s rights on the ground of equality of sexes in all spheres of life. Feminism, as a literary movement, aims to revolt against the patriarchal society which associates masculine with superiority, strength, action, self-assertion and domination; and feminine with inferiority, weakness, passivity, obedience and self-negation. Feminism aims to emancipate women from the chains of subjugation and domesticity. By depicting domestic violence, sexual harassment, male ego, etc., in their works the Feminist writers highlight and condemn the plight of women in the patriarchal society and thereby try to inculcate a sense of rebellion and self-identity in them.

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


Ishfaq Hussain Bhat, M.A.
Department of English
University of Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir
India
eshfaqbhat786@gmail.com

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