Breaking Chains of Representation: The Emancipation
of the Female Psyche from Patriarchal Discursive Formations
Sangita
Saha,
Independent Researcher,
Falakata,
Alipurduar,
West Bengal,
India.
Abstract: This paper utilizes a Foucauldian lens to
reassess the representation of the female psyche as a "discursive
formation" historically regulated by patriarchal power. By engaging with
Foucault’s theories on the power-knowledge nexus, the study argues that male-authored
narratives have functioned as "regimes of truth" that silence
authentic female interiority. Drawing parallels between Edward Said’s
Orientalism and Foucault’s archaeology of silence, the research identifies the
"rules of exclusion" that have governed the literary portrayal of
women. Through a comparative analysis of works by Kamala Das, Toni Morrison,
and Mahasweta Devi, the paper explores how these authors create a powerful
"counter-discourse." These modern narratives dismantle the "invisible
scaffolds of power" to facilitate a true emancipation of the female
psyche. Ultimately, the study concludes that re-imagining the "order of
things" in literary representation is essential for reclaiming female
agency in the 21st-century episteme.
Keywords: Michel Foucault, Discursive
Formations, Power-Knowledge, Female Psyche, Counter-discourse, Representation.
Introduction
There after
reading post colonial literature it is clear that colonisers thought that those
countries were waiting to be ruled by them and they did favor on them by ruling
over it (Said, 1978). In the same way for some male writers it was a favor they
were doing by writing about female. They crafted so well that ‘identity’ that
how far one tries they cannot bring whole at end. How can they be ending it
when it has been created for centuries .But it was a violation of the reality
of truth .When a person reads something that person slowly been manipulated by
that writing. So, whatever a writer should try to authentify his or her
writings. May be fictions are not reality but they are been impacted by reality
and they have the power to impact reality. Mary Astell said in her 1706 work,
“Reflections Upon Marriage” ,“if
all men are born free then why
not women, how is it that all women are born slaves “This is a question which
still resonates .Era of Colonialism ended , Countries got freedom. India got
freedom on 1947 but after all those years still the question of ‘freedom’
important. There a good slogan “free mind, free nation “problem is that nation
has been freed but ‘mind’ – still in bandage. Kamala Das in “The Old Play house
“ said heart ‘ seeks at last ‘ it asks at last ‘a pure total freedom’ but does it get ?When literature was
overwhelmed with ‘female obsessed literature’ which presented, represented even
misrepresented the image what known as ‘female psyche’ where the real female
psyche was then ?
If ‘Beowulf’ is considered as one of the
oldest text of English literature (along with ‘Widsith ‘) then wasn’t it too
depicted female. Ofcourse, there was female characters and the best known was
Grendel’s mother known as ‘monster’. Actually, Women were represented in the
way that they became a well known ‘women’ not the women she herself has to
know. In ‘Orientalism’, ’Orient’ cannot represent themselves so they were
represented as Said quoted Karl Mars in his epigraph of ‘Orientalism’, “They
cannot represent themselves, they must be represented” ( Said , 8) but who told
Colonized people were not capable of representing themselves. None told it but
for the sake of justifying ‘ Colonialism ‘ colonisers discovered a reason a
reason which can be sound valid .But was it valid ? Someway as women were for
long time not allowed to write or enter in public domain so , some men thought
that was there duty to ‘ represent ‘ them .May be for their concern women can
express gratitude but what they did in reality it never deserved gratitude.
They created very different image of female which akin to distortion of fact
.In their creation either women were ‘goddess’ or ‘monster’. Either they were
in pedestal or they were lower than human. There, they could see only black and
white they couldn’t think of grey.
Sonnet a genre
which by the hand of Earl of Surrey entered in English literature. Shakespeare
to Spencer all became masters of it .They wrote so many sonnets. Shakespeare
wrote 154 sonnets. There sonnet no 126 to sonnet no 152 are known as ‘dark
lady’ sequence sonnets. Shakespeare came out different from Petrarch and all
other sonnet writers he didn’t show his mistress as a perfect woman, he showed
all the qualities of her from virtues to vices. He showed her a human being of
flesh and blood not a divine creature.
None can define
themselves out of blue. One defines himself or herself by defining ‘other’. If
‘Orientalism’ “...tries to show that European culture gained its strength and
identity by setting itself off against the orient as a sort of surrogate and
even underground itself .” ( Said,) then my paper too will reflect how ‘ female
psyche ‘ has been created to make sure it’s inferior position to the male psyche
.Said said ,” Orientalism unilaterally determines what can be said about the
orient “ ( Said ,)if it so then male writers too for ages ‘ determined ‘ what ‘
can be said about ‘ female psyche through their writings. For the time being, I
am not focusing on what Simon de Beauvoir said about women that “ one is not
born but rather becomes woman “ ( Beauvoir,). For my paper I have decided to
talk about this at the end .First I want to make clear the difference between ‘
male made illusion ‘ or ‘ male fantasy ‘ with the real woman. There, definitely
need to talk about everything be it small thing or big thing .For that reason
when there was need to talk about female psyche there required sources to
represent it or to be represented If one starts reading then without any doubt
most of the sources to know female psyche was male given .As for long time male
writers were only available. There too long reason available which I will talk
later .Even if one talks about the history of creation or any reliable religious
book there definitely more than ninety percent written by male although not to
be wrong if we say hundred percent written by male .There we know so many
versions of Bible but how many written by women ? We know the story of Adam and
Eve but how many favoured Adam? Were there enough texts which could tell the
story from Eve’s part? There one part of story cannot be appropriate to know as
the other part too important. “Until and unless lion knows how to speak every
story will glorify the hunter.” Same way, until and unless women s started
representing themselves there every representation only glorified male.
Milton’s
‘Paradise Lost’ is one of the best literary text one finds not only in English
literature but also in world literature. It is an epic, a secondary epic .This
is a text where from the creation of man to his first disobedience are being
projected. We all know Milton was genius, he was excellent. We can say as a man
of his stature he never can do misrepresentation. We can say he can’t is distort
truth .But if historians can accept that there no objective truth , only
subjective truth and subjective truth destined to be bias then the study of ‘
Paradise Lost ‘ will be problematic. Then Milton would be problematic. In ‘Paradise
Lost’, it was written that it was Satan who first tried to tempt Adam but after
being failed he tempted Eve and this time he was successful
This is written
in genesis too .Said said “Orient and Occident are manmade “(Said, 5)
.Narratives too are manmade .Just like in ‘Orientalism’ Occident got
superiority by proving inferiority of Orient, same way male got superiority by
proving inferiority of female .But was it such simple? It was not simple but it
was made simple by narratives .Said said “...imagery vocabulary that have given
it reality and presence it for the west “(5) In a simple language ‘Orient’ was
created to cater west as ‘female were bring ‘represented’ or better be told
misrepresented to cater male or better be told to cater a group of people known
as Patriarchy; it can include both male and female. This may be the reason of
representing female psyche whatever we will see it by the end of the paper.
If today I write
something about ‘female psyche ‘and if it doesn’t go align with the narratives
already been told about it then what will happen? Will there be violation? If
violation then who is the violator is it me or the people who misrepresented
female psyche? For long time it was thought women were meant to be at home and
they only can do work at home .They were not allowed to cross the boundary of
four walls. Rushsundari Devi depicted a very touching story of her emancipation
in her autobiography ‘ Aamar Jibon ‘ and I won’t be wrong if I say none could
have done justification to the text except her .She broke all boundaries. She
vandalised all the ‘male fantasy’ and showed what is real ‘female psyche’. Till
now if any question came to mind then it is like why male writers were obsessed
with female psyche? Why they had to represent female in their writing? Was it
their genuine concern? Or anything else? Weren’t they creating a new female a
new female psyche through their narratives which can prove invalidity of real
living woman’s presence and her psyche? If thousands time one shows that to be
correct is like that then after that won’t the meaning of correction gets changed?
If in hundred narratives women are showed to be like fragile, beautiful, soft
spoken then, silent then women too thought being women means the same.
One group of
critic said all these representations were to ensure male superiority. They
said all this were part of their ideology. Louis Althusser said in his work ‘
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses ‘ “the reason for such presentation
of the requirement of the ruling class is that the state in many and various
way is only manifestations of specific
class rules it is machinery a set of Apparatuses...” (Althusser). When comes to
the spreading of ideology, there the use of two methods either by persuasion or
by dominance. Creating narratives women
were pursued to be ‘ fragile ‘ ‘ loving ‘ ‘ silent ‘ or by creating the same
narrative they were forced not to be opposite of it .As this narratives proven
there only two kind of women one who is too virtuous so akin too ‘ goddess ‘
and another is viceful so either ‘ witch ‘ or ‘ monster ‘ .But virtues should be appreciated in everybody
indifferent to their sex and gender .Why not male being taught to be soft ,
fragile , loving ? Why this is known as female characteristics? Definitely more
than ghost witch is popular. As more than male, female were not meant to have
vices .If any woman violated norms of being women then they were called as
witch .if not with then definitely mad woman ( as mad woman in the attic ) or
monster ( just like Grendel’s mother in Beowulf )
Literature is too
part of Ideological state Apparatuses. It too part of the eternal history of
ideology a history which proves it has no history as you can not say where
exactly it started and where it ended .Literature has eternal history of
representation. Literature is powerful. Althusser said there no need to use
State Apparatuses as “there always exists an Ideological state Apparatuses
inherent in them.” A girl is never been required to be beaten to have womanly
qualities as they already knew those narratives. They read narratives regarding
what is meant to be woman and what means not to be woman .So , it was ‘
inherent in them ‘.
What was the
result of such representation? Till now how far I discussed it is clear to me
that there one clear cut result of such representation and it was ‘repression’.
It repressed not only female image but the real female psyche.” However
repression can assume different forms visible, invisible, violent, physical and
persuasive psychological (Althusser). This repression of female psyche was
‘invisible’ and ‘persuasive psychological’. According to Said, every knowledge
is ‘political knowledge’ and there nothing like ‘pure knowledge’. If after
reading a literary texts we start thinking this are not part of ‘political
knowledge’ then we are wrong. Said said “...General Liberal consciousness that
true knowledge is fundamentally not political and conversely political
knowledge is not true knowledge obscures the highly, if obsexurely organised
political circumstances obtaining when knowledge is produced.” (Said, 10) Just
like the” relationships between Occident and Orient was relationship of power
of dominion of varying degree of a complex hegemony...” ,( Said, 5) same way
relationships between the writers of
female psyche with actual female psyche was the relationship of ‘ power ‘ , ‘
power of dominion of varying degree of a complex hegemony ‘.
For long time
women were not allowed to write and if they wrote there only few readers who
were interested in reading they opted for male pseudonym. From Christina
Rossetti to Bronte sisters all took pseudonyms .For long time none knew ‘ Jane
Eyre ‘ was written by Charlotte Bronte all thought it was written by a male
named Currer Bell .There none knew who was Mary Ann Evans as all knew George
Eliot .Writing was called to be something not women job .If ever women tried to
do so they were hurled as someone trying to become ‘ literary lioness ‘ .So for
centuries even more than that all representing of female psyche were done by
male writers .There were no female writers so from where would be female
representation of themselves. There were only male representation of female
psyche which were representation less but misrepresentation more. If Browning’s
dramatic monologues accepted female characters presence there the characters
are silent. In his poetry women are either silent listener or someone who is
known by male personae .There always limitation of their speaking. In most
cases it showed they were silent and used few gestures .They were perfect
voiceless .Even ‘objective correlative’ got popularity by female characters.
Female characters couldn’t express their emotions so it be reflected either in
object or in sequence of events MH Abrams
in his book ‘ The Mirror and the Lamp ‘
said “ the only way expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘
objectives correlative ‘ in other word a set of objects a situation, which
shall be the formulary of that
particular emotion , such that when external facts , which must
terminate in sensory experience are given the emotion immediately evoked “ ( Abrams,)
Nothing but Kali Das’s ‘Abhijnanashakuntalam’ is the appropriate example of it.
Kali Das used immensely ‘objective correlative’ while expressing Shakuntala’s
emotion. There trees, all other natural element were expressing her emotion
while Sakuntala meant to be silent. To
show her pain there be rain there be tempest but to show her own pain she was
not allowed to cry nor to show her anger .My question is that same vocal organs
present in both male and female then why women are said to be silent and men are
to be vocal .If it was different then there might have been the real progress.
When men would be having conscious emotions and when female would be having
justified reasons then there will be progress.
They’re very
fixed criteria to be a man. A man isn’t supposed to be like a woman. They never
can behave like woman if they do then they are demeaning themselves. Emotions
like anger can go well with man but crying makes him feminine , loud speaking
make him man but soft speaking makes him feminine. There ofcourse name for
those men too who violates that boundary between male and female .In all male
representation female are always a damsel meant to be rescued from situation
like ‘damsel in distress’. From Spencer’s ‘Faerie Queene’ to Thomas Gray’s
‘Return of the Native‘ showed how real womanly woman require a rescuer to
protect them .They do not acknowledge strong women as women .Even they do not
acknowledge them as human. Eustacia in ‘ Return of the Native ‘ showed as a
mystery or something supernatural not a human as she was not fit for the role
of woman .Emily Dickinson in her poem ‘ I cannot live with you ‘expressed that
same disappointment. She said why not be natural woman rather than an
artificial woman.
Whenever
Violence happens women are soft target. They were targeted indifferent to the
fact that they participated or not .Three partitions of India if anyone lost
everything it was women. For the sake of ‘honour’ they were scapegoat. Not only
other community people but their own family killed them. Although some male
writer like Khushwant Singh ( in Train to Pakistan ‘), Sadat Hasan Manto (in
‘Khol Do’) did justification in showing the female suffering but what Urvashi
Butalia ( In ‘Another Side of Silence’) and Bapsi Sidwa ( in ‘Ice Candy Man’)
did was incomparable.
Every story has counter
story, every attack has counter attack .Every narrative has counter narrative. If
for centuries male created ‘female psyche’ then there in 19th and 20th century female
writers are recreating ‘female psyche’ .Although it started much more
before the 19th or 20th century. Aproximately
it started with renaissance but it got true voice with modern age. 19th and 20th
century representation of ‘female psyche’ is out of ‘male fantasy’. First
writer of that era who can be talked is Kamala Das. She is being called ‘
mother of modern Indian English Poetry ‘ .She faced lot of criticism her
writings are always under scrutiny for her excessive use of sexual imagery .But
none can deny the fact that her voice is the voice of ‘equality’. She did speak
for female freedom. In ‘An Introduction’, Kamala Das said,
“I speak in three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.”
But whatever she
does she has never been given freedom. She said why people do not leave her
alone .She said ‘ critics ‘ , ‘ friends ‘, ‘ visiting cousins ‘ all too leave
her. She wants that space for herself which all have taken away from her. If
male writers showed that women are in general devoid of ‘ will ‘ and ‘ reason
‘.Then there Kamala Das who wrote how
woman have ‘ will ‘ and ‘ reason ‘ but sometimes they forego it for the sake of
their partner.
“I became a dwarf; I lost my will and reason
To all your
questions I mumbled incoherent replies “
But in return
this women get nothing as Kamala Das said Men ‘ love is narcissus at the water
edge , haunted ‘( Das ,) There now I
will talk what Beauvoir said .She said it is not one is women but she becomes
woman .In ‘An Introduction’, Kamala Das expressed how
she was told to ‘be woman’ or ‘dress in
sarees’, ‘be wife’. Although some male writers showed different colors of women
just like men. But this writers were few who said women can be grey just like
black and white .One cannot say she is good or she is worst , one has to see
what made them what they are .Definitely Rabindranath Tagore was such a man his
novel like ‘Gora’, ‘Eye Sore’, ‘Home and the World’ all are proof of it .
Jane Austen although
not a modern writer but did contribute immense in the true presentation of
female psyche .In the novel, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ she created a very strong
female character. Elizabeth is totally a different character from the female
characters written by male writers. Neither she was beautiful nor was she submissive.
She was totally out of ‘male fantasy ‘.She was the representation of true
individual female psyche.
Charles Dickens
novels are found in having women characters belonging to different social
classes and show his observations and viewpoints over women of that time.
Dickens has presented women of his literature in different roles as
destructive, angelic, abused, evil women and true mother but can be found in
preferring to show women as angelic identities representing happiness. Amy
Dorrit of the novel Little Dorrit is this kind of angelic character who
provides new hope and optimism in life. Thomas Hardy presented women as having
more instinct and impulse than men and his theme of representing women in his
creations is based on a realism approach. Susan of the novel The Mayor of
Casterbridge is an example of this idea. It can be stated that female
characters developed by Hardy are made up of simple elements and experiences
while having greater variety than other writers of his time.
While talking
further , I think now to talk about Jayanta Mahapatra first Indian English
writer to get Sahitya Akademin Award .His poem ‘ Hunger ‘ has been taught in
colleges and universities across the country .That poem has something which
deeply to be thought .It was a poem which showed again how famine can be
violent. It showed hunger for food can kill a person’s every sense .How cruel
the situation might be which made the father such cruel .That fisherman had voice
he spoke that poet personae too had voice but what about the girl .Fisherman
said
“...my daughter
she’s just turned fifteen
Feel her , I’ll
be back soon , your bus leaves at nine ‘
Till then the
poet personae was aware regarding sexual hunger but once he saw the girl he
understood there more powerful is the hunger for food as it made the girl
living deadbolt
“She opened her
wormy legs wide I felt the hunger there
The other one, fish
slithering turning inside “
How far progress
comes there just like every other material woman are being utilized. They were
something like cattle .Women for long time were thought to be a body only .They
weren’t suppose to have mind
Arundhati Roy's
“The God of Small Things”, published in 1997, paints a gloomy and shadowy world
for women. It focuses on the hardships women are still undergoing even in the
modern times. This women-centric novel brings out before the readers the state
of women in a specific social milieu. The novel depicts how women have
struggled to “escape traditional values, patriarchy, and colonial power”
(Culde, 2019). Mahasweta Devi conceptualises the women's body, more
particularly the breasts in “Breast Stories” (1997), as a symbol subverting the
social codes constructed for woman. Devi interweaves the political, social and
economic repression of different women in the “Breast Stories”. Mulk Raj Anand
in “Untouchable” (1935) underlines the marginality of women as she is made to
suffer under the prevalent class structure, flourishing on rich - poor disconnects.
In this novel, women as “the second sex” are pushed to the margins in a
phallogocentric world and being a Dalit from a poor class creates another layer
of oppression.
On the other
hand , 12th to 15th century, different identities of women can be observed but
most of those identities show them as second class citizens of society and
women commodification can be found as the central idea of the mediaeval English
literature. Chaucer, Malory and William Langland are some of the major writers
of the mediaeval age [13]. Suppression over weak women can be found in most of
the literature written during this period. Most common and positively used
women characteristics in the mediaeval age literature can be considered as the
idea of “The virgin”. In most of the literature women are presented as the idea
of purity. Women are mentioned to remain pure until their wedding and unmarried
women of mediaeval age were represented as virtuous and pure women. This
concept mostly evolved from the concept of Mother Mary who is also called
Virgin Mary. In mediaeval English literature virgin ladies are often found in
guiding the hero character to the path of God and they are mostly presented as
graceful and beautiful. Una of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is one of the
examples of the virgin identity of mediaeval aged ladies who are represented as
pure souls who are protected by the Red Cross Knight and she helped the hero in
staying on the path..But they were too in fault presenting this as virtues
should be appreciated in everybody indifferent to male or female. If one
appreciate female virginity then they should appreciate male virginity too .If
one likes purity in women then they should expect purity in men too .Expecting virtues not wrong but Expecting it
only from women is wrong .Asking always sacrifices from women is wrong as they
should ask it from all indifferent to gender and sex.
Post colonial
literature criticises not only of colonial literature but also of feminist
literature. According to postcolonial feminists postcolonial literature failed
to raise women issues and According to them first and second wave feminism too
failed in raising black women issues .According to them first and second wave
feminism centered around white women .Although they were not wrong as in the
way black feminists speak of their life struggle it was not possible to be done
by anyone else .For example , in the way Toni Morrison talked about Black
women’s life struggle which was a living trauma, none could have done it .In ‘
Beloved ‘ Toni Morrison reflected the trauma of slavery which never leaves
women psyche .Not only past was ‘ intolerable ‘ to Sethe but the present too.
“...Her past had been like her present intolerable since she knew death was
anything but forgetfulness “ .( Morriston,)How much a pain gets inflicted not
only in body but also in psyche which makes life ‘ nasty ‘ and death ‘
meaningful ‘.She is indeed “ suspended between the nastiness of life and the
meanness of the death “ ()Slavery ended but the trauma of it remains .As “ if
to punish her further for her terrible memory ‘.While writing this novel
Toni Morriston dedicated to her people,
she called them ‘ my people ‘ but if any other postcolonial writers tried to so
or if any other male writers tried to do so they never could call
themselves their people as it is impossible.
There should be some ‘shared identity to call it’ .In reality when a person
feels pain how much painful it is to her and him only they can understand as
how much anybody from outside tries they can’t. Second hand experience can’t be
first hand .Can we as reader fully comprehend or feel the pain of Sethe who was
treated as a cattle “those boys come in there took my milk that’s what they
came in there for held me down and took it ...Then boys found out I told on
School teacher made one pen up my back and when it closed it made a tree .It
grows there till “ ( Morriston,)
Sylvia Plath is
a feminist. Her poems are reflection of her psyche along with so many other
women .She gave voice for equality. In ‘ the Colossus ‘ she beautifully
expressed pain of a daughter who lost her father at a very tender age
“I shall never
get you put together entirely
Pieced, glued
and properly jointed ‘
Is there any
real identity a woman has? Or they are always known as someone’s daughter or
someone’s wife or someone’s mother .Aren’t they only ‘shadow’. Sylvia Plath
said,
“My hours are
married to shadow
No longer do I
listen the scrape of keel “
Conclusion
From Mary
Wollstonecraft to Virginia Woolf all talked for women voice.’ A Vindication of
the Rights of Women ‘ ( written by Mary Wollstonecraft ) is pivotal to know
where women used to stand and where they should have been .They contributed
immense in liberation movement. They liberated ‘ female psyche ‘ from the
bondage of Patriarchy as well as from the bondage of ‘ male fantasy ‘ .Along
with them so many other female writers contribution made a separated domain to
know the real femininity out of ‘ male gaze ‘ .They broke the cycle of
representation. They made clear there no homogenous reading of female psyche so
one shouldn’t practice it .In order to find every voice and in order to realize
every feeling one should go for both collective and individual reading. They
first read female writers then they can read male writers but reading male
writers along can’t help .As there too ‘imaginary vocabulary ‘which made a
different presentation, a representation but not a true presentation.
Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, edited by Ben Brewster, New Left Books, 1971, pp. 127-186.
Das, Kamala. "An Introduction." The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, Orient Blackswan, 1973.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Edited by John Leonard, Penguin Books, 2003.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Plath, Sylvia. The Colossus and Other Poems. Faber and Faber, 1960.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1979.