REVISIONING OF MYTHICAL FEMALE IDENTITY IN A MARGINALISED
CULTURE: A CULTURAL FEMINIST DEBATE IN SELECT NOVELS OF SHASHI DESHPANDE
Dr. M. Durga Devi
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Sona College of Arts and Science
Abstract:
Cultural studieshave almost monopolised the field of literature and the
interdependency of culture and literature is identified in many texts. Down the
ages, the critical tradition of literature offersa most valuable insight into
the world of cultural studies as it characterises the highest achievements of
human beings’ production of culture. The word ‘culture’encompasses certain
beliefs, notions, ideologies and cultural practices that girdle all segments of
the society. The broad field of cultural studies advances an inquiry into the
interdisciplinary study of anthropology, cultural feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism,
etc. It tends to study the ideologies of prevailing beliefs, operational and
political issues of power, and hegemonial issues of class, gender, and race.
Also, it observes the empirical cultural practices that influence society.
Cultural Studies recognise and question the social structures that suppress
women and resist the pervasive attempt to subdue the muted group. Cultural
feminism exposes the dominant role of patriarchal hegemony in literature where
one particular gender thrives on the prevalent custodial culture to enhance
patriarchy. Men have inherited the power to subdue women in a biased way of
exercising control over women’s liberty by imposing mythical and cultural
values through textual representation. The ramification of man-made cultural
values in other disciplines of studies like philosophy, psychology, etc.
unveils the miserable picture of women and their destiny prescribed by men. The
critical analysis of the Hindu scriptures like The Ramayana, The Mahabharata
and the other Vedic scriptures is infested with the culturally defined
characteristics of femininity that constitute the most pervasive ideology of
patriarchy. The present article examines the fragmentation of female identity
professed by andro-textual writing and attempts to decode and demystify the
enigmatic connection between textuality and sexuality. This research work
attempts to explore the possibilities of gynostyle of revisioning the female
identity over androstylethat undermines the patriarchal ideology concerning
Shashi Deshpande’s select novels, The
Dark Holds No Terrors, and That
Long Silence, andIt discusses the ecriture feminine concern of Shashi
Deshpande’s effort to restyle the cultural identity of women by deconstructing
and revisioning the male production of fragmented female identity.
Keywords:
Revisioning, Feminism, Culture, Myth, Deconstruction, Identity
Introduction
Shashi Deshpande is a contemporary Indian woman writer
who articulates the struggles and sufferings of women, travelling through the
psyche of women to trace their oppression and frustration as victims of
patriarchy. Deshpande’s works pose an ambiguous and multi-layered understanding
that declines to offer a single linguistic expression. On the whole, there is a
powerful undercurrent of Indianness that stands significantly unique in her
narrative style. She takes liberty in employing the cultural models from the
Upanishads, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata.
The current research work has employed textual analysis,
cultural and mythical interpretations and critical interpretations of texts as
research methodology. It is an incomplete study that relied heavily on archival
methods of gathering information. Finally, the research relied on various
critical interpretations which include books, articles, journals, e-books,
interviews and online sources, as secondary sources.
Research Questions:
How can the cultural, mythical and stereotypical image of
women be transformed into an unmuted contemporary woman? Does the
transformation promote a new identity for women?
Influence of Hindu Mythology andCulture
Shashi Deshpande employs traditional Hindu mythologies in
shaping her literary work. The author has sought to bring out the underlying
meaning of Indian cultural myth that represents the socio-cultural instinct of
native people. As Deshpande proposes in Writing
fromthe Margins and Other Essay: “Myths condition our ideas so great that
often it is difficult to disentangle the reality of what we perceive from what
we learn of ourselves through them; our behaviour is often, and to a great
extent, dictated by them” (P 88).The epics and Puranas of Hindu mythology serve
as powerful imagery to Indian authors in expressing deep thoughts and
intellectual power. These myths that demonstrate human characters work as a
common reservoir of recurrent themes, images, and motifs in a narrative
pattern. The mythological figures symbolise primordial ideas inherited by a
communal group, creating a lasting impression on the human psyche. Myth critics
turn to seek literary interpretation based on distinct patterns of approach;
Carl Jung developed his myth criticism with the existing psychoanalytic theory
derived from the collective unconscious framing human psyche conceived with
cultural concepts. As quoted by Bijay Kumar Das in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism:
In functionalist approaches to cultural anthropology,
myths are explained in terms of the needs they meet in the reproduction and
stabilisation of society. Thus, by encoding group norms, mythology serves to
strengthen the cohesion and integrity of society. In Durkheimian sociology,
mythology may be seen to be expressive of the collective conscience, that is to
say, the norms and beliefs into which individuals are socialised, and that
serve as the cement that holds together both pre-industrial and industrial
societies (89)
Productive Approach of Cultural Feminist
Revision is a productive approach to excavating and
challenging the patriarchal representation of women that derogated their values
and cultural myths behind the enhancement of custodial culture. Subsequently,
Myths with fixed concepts that disturbed the psyche of women have prepared to
disappear from literature. Ancient texts are re-read and rewritten in the
female orientation to reveal the massive energy of women to identify their role
in the family and society rather than suffer as sacrificial victims. In
contemporary society, revision is a prerequisite element to re-imagine the
distorted image and the decreed values of women established in the
male-oriented scriptures. Corresponding to the theory of revisionist
mythmaking, Alicia Ostrieker remarks in Stealing the Language:
…Old stories are changed utterly, by female knowledge of
female experience, so that they can no longer stand as foundations of
collective male fantasy. Instead… they are corrections; they are
representations of what women find divine and demonic in themselves; they have
retrieved images of what women have collectively and historically suffered;
(and) in some cases they are instructions for survival. (215)
Feminist writers emanated to decode and demystify the
male hegemonic writings to perpetuate female emancipation. In this respect,
Adrienne Rich observes: “Revision- the act of looking back, of seeing with
fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction is for women
more than a chapter in cultural history. It is an act of survival.” (90) However,
Deshpande’s perception of these mythical models illuminates her mind with an
outright pertinent discussion of why women alone sacrifice themselves to
exemplify a virtue. She asks why men are not expected to act up to the
counterparts of these female role models. Frequently quoted examples in her
novels are Draupadi, Sita, Gandhari, Maitreyee, etc. In The Ramayana, Sita is the leading character and she symbolises
self-sacrifice, chastity, and dedication. Sita is revered as an ideal wife, a
personification of patience who admitted herself to Agnipariksha to prove her
chastity. In That Long Silence, the
author compares Jaya with Sita in The
Ramayana because Jaya followed her husband like Sita, leaving all her
pleasure, treasures, and concerns, everything in the Churchgate house with no
preparation. LikaSathyavan’sSavithri who followed Death to restore her
husband’s body to life, Jaya is expected to follow her husband’s plot. Jaya
remarks:
“I remember now that he had assumed, I would accompany
him, had taken for granted my acquiescence in his plans. So had I. Sita,
following her husband into exile, Savitri dogged Death to reclaim her husband,
Draupadi stoically shared her husband’s travails” (TLS 11)
Another mythical model frequently quoted by the novelist
was Maitreyee, a well-educatedVedic philosopher, one of the two wives of sage
Yajnavalkya. That Long Silence
carries a reference to Maitreyee, a renowned dialogue between Yajnavalkya and
Maitreyee rooted in ‘Brihadaranyaka Upanishad’. Yajnavalkya accomplished three
stages of life–brahmacharya, Grihastha, and Vanaprastha, who desired to attain
sannyasa and decided to divide his properties between two wives. Maitreyee
questioned him if the property and the whole assets of the earth would bless
her with immortality and he replied negatively.
Maitreyee is an expounder of Advaita Veda and an explorer of ‘Atman’
(Soul), who wanted to redeem the soul from the mortal body and seek immortality
(freedom). Similarly, Jaya seems to be busy with the nothingness of life and is
enslaved by the eternal domestic work of cooking, cleaning, washing, dusting,
and polishing. She wants inner freedom and aspires for a soul free to do what
it desires in a pleasing manner, which resembles Maitreyee’s craving for
immortality. Similarly, Gandhari, the devoted wife of Dhritrashtra, a blind
king of Hastinapura, is an epitome of kindness and probity. She resolved to
remain blind all through her life to share the disability and pain of her
husband. The Mahabharata portrayed
this righteousness of woman as an exemplary virtue and adored her.
Deshpande makes an insinuating reference in the novel to
describe the long silence of women, which is not a voluntary deed but an
enforced snare in the name of moral excellence.
Daly states: "Women who accept false inclusion among the fathers
and sons are easily polarized against other women based on ethnic, national,
class, religious and other male-defined differences, applauding the defeat of
'enemy' women." When Mohan ignores Jaya’s feelings and proposes to go to
Bombay, Jaya says, ‘I bandaged my eyes tightly’, like Gandhari to remain an
ideal wife. Deshpande is enraged with this fake wisdom of women and tries to
root out the irrationality behind the exaggerated allegiance. Like Simone de
Beauvoir, Deshpande believes that these stories are manmade and these myths
also originated from men’s creation to polarise good from the bad. Men want
women to sacrifice, be chaste, selfless, and devoted to them, and so they
created these mythical models to enslave the female gender. Recently many
Indian writers have explored stereotypes and myths of Indian epics and Vedas to
reveal the subaltern state of women. These myths are more of a burden and make
women vulnerable victims of the patriarchal society. Deshpande kindles the
self-esteem of the suppressed women to rise and rebel against injustice.
ThusSaru makes a powerful speech in The
Dark Holds NoTerrors to a group of girls to make them aware of patriarchal
domination:
“Don’t struggle, don’t swim against the tide. Go along
with it; and if you drown nevertheless, well, that’s an easier death after all.
They will tell you about economic independence and an independent identity.
Forget the words. If Draupadi had been economically independent, and if Sita
had an independent identity, do you think their stories would have been
different? No, these are things that have been voluntarily surrendered and
consciously abandoned, because that is the only way to survive” (TDHNT 137)
Saru’s split personality is compared with the woman who
is possessed of Goddess Devi’s spirit. It is a common South Indian folktale and
a believed myth when a woman is possessed bya goddess’s spirit, she denies
herself and takes the liberty to treat her body like the spirit's own ‘Self’.
Saru comes to reconciliation that she is possessed by her mother’s spirit and
that regulates her relationship with others like a split personality.
Deshpande’s interpretation of myth creates a new meaning
that illuminates the psyche of women. A.S. Rao comments, “…the post-modern
texts move back and forth in terms of time-space reality depending on the
situation. Such texts use myth both for meditations and subversions,
accordingly, as they elevate or subvert the myths for delineation of truth.”
(Rao.10)
Deshpande denies the blind devotion to the mythical
models and provokes the readers to redefine the role of women and avoid the
trap lying beneath the prevalent mythical values that underestimate the
strength of women. Linda Alcoff argues
that in such a liberated stage women will be identified as powerful “... In
such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children
(if and as we choose) but the visions, and the thinking, necessary to sustain,
console and alter human existence and new relationship to the universe.
Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy
will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed." (CULTURAL
FEMINISM VERSUS POST- STRUCTURALISM: THE IDENTITY CRISIS IN FEMINIST THEORY;
Spring 1988) Her citation of myth reflects the ideological strategy employed by
male writers to envisage the idea of morality in the form of suffering, and she
pictures adeptly that the image of mute suffering, sacrificial wife, tolerant
mother, etc., are fascinating mousetraps to suppress female gender.
Works Cited
Alcoff, Linda. “Cultural Feminism versus
Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory”. Signs, vol. 13, no. 3 (Spring 1988), pp.
405-436.
Das, Bijay Kumar. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Atlantic Publishers &
Distributors, 2014.
Deshpande, Shashi. A Matter of Time. Penguin Books, 1996.
---. That
Long Silence. Penguin Books, 1989
---. The
Binding Vine. Penguin Books, 1998
---. The
Dark Holds No Terrors. Penguin Books, 1990
---. Writing
from the Margin and Other Essays. Penguin Books, 2003
Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology. Beacon Press, 1978
Ostriker, Alicia. Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America. Beacon
Press, 1991
Rao, A.S. Myth
and History in Contemporary Indian Novel in English. Atlantic Publishers
& Distributors, 2000
Rich, Adrienne. “When We Dead Awaken: Writing
as Re-vision.” Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose: Poems, Prose and Criticism.
Edited by Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi. Norton, 1975