Women, Poetry and Empowerment

Adyasha Das
Associate Professor
Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management
Ministry of Tourism , Govt. of India, Bhubaneswar

There is a charming myth connected with the Creation of Woman by Brahma, who, in
his generosity, wished to give man a companion. Having exhausted all the material in
the creation of man, he borrowed several components from his bountiful creation,
Nature, and made woman out of them. Hence the reference to Woman as “Prakriti”.
After abortive efforts on Man’s part to adjust with the woman, Brahma rebuked him, “if
you cannot live with her, neither can you live without her”. This primordial myth carries
an unmistakable implication of the need for continual adjustment in Man-woman
relationship.

Even in these days, when so much has been said about the women’s issues etc/:, a
gender-identity based study of literature has its own raison d’etre. The image of woman
empowerment in Oriya literature, specifically poetry, emerges out of the existing world.
The study has attempted to trace links of women empowerment in poetry. It serves a
double purpose – shows which way the writer’s sensibility works and whether over the
ages there has been a change in it. It also serves as a mirror to the society in which we
exist. This study serves as a step in the radiating of self-awareness, self observation
and self-appraisal for woman in general and as a meaningful comment on the creative
effort of writers.

“One peculiarity of the images of women,” says Mary Ann Fergusson,” throughout
history is that social stereotypes have been reinforced by archetypes. Another way of
putting this would be to say that in every age, woman has been seen primarily as
mother, wife, mistress, sex object – their roles in relationship to men.” Roles outside
this, i.e. woman as an achiever, leader or as a strong individual are, by and large, either
non-existent or rare. They are also exceptions and represent the extra-ordinary types
and not the average ones.

In India too, both men and women writers have seen women in these relationships.
Sociologists regard India as a traditionally male-dominated society where individual
rights are subordinated to group or social role expectations. A woman’s individual self
has very little recognition and self-effacement is her normal way of life. Indian woman
too, as a part of that set-up has accepted it and lived with it for ages as is revealed in
the works of Madhavi Dasi, Brundabati Dasi and Nishankaray Rani.

By and large, in the ancient history of India, women have been deified, glorified and
also regarded as myths. However, in reality, most of the times a contradictory state of
affairs also existed. There was and perhaps is a duality in the projection of women in
literature. Along with conventional types, there are also protesting women characters as
revealed in the poems of Aparna, Sarala and Kuntala.
It is an accepted fact that in the Vedic age, a high concept of womanhood prevailed.
The following lines from Rajashekhara’s “Kavya Meemansa” express the high Indian
ideal about womanhood.

“Samskaro Atmani Samavaiti

Na Strainam Va Paurusam Va Vibhagam Apekshate”.

The society recognized virtues, merit and talent wherever they existed and gender
distinctions were not taken into account. Basically Vedic society visualized two types of
women – “Brahmavadini” and ‘Sadyovadhu”. The first type was the ascetic type who
carried on the quest of truth, knowledge and spiritual pursuits for her ideal and the
second one – the “Sadyovadhu” was the domestic type who dedicated herself to the
welfare of the family. The second type and her conflict characterizes the works of the
women writers in the pre-independent era.

However, there was an attempt at resurrection of the condition of women, (and its still
an ongoing process) after the introduction of Western education, Reformist movement,
promotion of women’s institutions, the Freedom movement and so on. With India
acquiring an identity of her own, doors were thrown open for women to acquire their
own identities.

In Post-Independence era, poetry, especially as mirrored in the works of the chosen

women writers, when women’s education had already commenced and life had started
changing, the New Woman, attempting to empower herself, started emerging. The
spread of education inculcated a sense of individuality among women and aroused an
interest in their rights. Women started becoming economically independent and there
was a striving for the realization of their own aspirations. The New Woman does not
belong totally to either of the two former categories – “Brahmavadini” or “Sadyovadhu”;
she belongs to a new category, a questioning, assertive, self-actualizing,empowered
soul.

Feminist trends appeared on the horizon and they came into conflict with the
conventional moral code. A set of new paradigms related to a woman’s life came into
existence – tradition and modernity, self –assertion and self – effacement, economic
dependence and independence and so on. Post-independent Oriya poetry portrays all
these trends and voices, the clamouring of women for a new and just way of life. With
time, the age-old image of the helpless woman seems to be slowly blurring and
gradually shading off into a new image.

A comparision of pre and post-independent poetry in Oriya literature reveals that the
image of woman now seems to be Janus – faced – the old, conventional image
belonging to the past, still lingering on and the emerging image of the New woman
looking forward to the future.

Giribala’s or Pratibha’s voice is a self-searching one, in the quest of one’s true identity.
In their works, the woman is redefining her new role and determining its parameters to
herself and to the society, in every walk of life and perhaps revolutionizing the concept
of womanhood itself. Still caught between feudal values and style of life and the new
life, entrapped between the burden of the home and the work-place, child bearing,
mothering, struggling with conventions, women have to, first of all, survive; the question
of equality is a far cry. In such transitional times characterized by flux, it is essential to
identify the woman’s endeavour to assert and empower herself. It is extremely
convenient to do it as a study of the empowerment of woman in pre-independent and
post-independent era,as reflected in oriya poetry. A vital issue arising out of such a
study is a reflection on the virtues of the conventional way of life. It is often maintained
that “through self-denial and a profound concern for others”, the conventional woman
imparted stability to society. The selected poems of women writers in Oriya unfold the
saga of Indian womanhood through ages and conclude at the contemporary stage,
highlighting various images of woman over time.

Of course, viewed from one perspective, literature has an aesthetic vision, going
beyond the hard reality of socio-economic facts and an understanding of it perhaps
may make women’s liberation irrelevant. In fact, in certain poems, a few pre-
independent writers have portrayed woman as the embodiment of beauty who finds
fulfillment only as a wife and life-partner. Nonetheless, there are hints of there being a
better than equal status in social, political and religious life. However the entire bulk of
“bhakti” literature harps on the reformist note against orthodoxy and stresses
emphatically the equality of opportunity to all.

The rigid patriarchal society had strict do’s and don’ts for women. The concept of
chastity was so much harped upon that, Brundabati had to apologize for writing about
the Radha-Krushna love.

I am by nature a woman,
without tolerance without mind,
As I sing of Krushna,
I am divinely inspired,
But you will say –
She is a woman of the family,
As a family – woman
she can’t praise an outsider.
It is not good,
it does not become a family – woman.
I have not read anything,
By nature a woman, low in work,
A prisoner in the royal family
Worried, oppressed
Not knowing what to do.
and again,
A woman by nature
Poor in work
No intelligence,
no studies,
I do not know how to spend my days and nights.
The agony and helplessness are both evident – an undercurrent which had hardly left
women writers in Orissa.

The following is an extract from Sarala’s essay Satitwar Naba Darsana (Chastity : A
New Outlook) where she speaks of the appropriate values of womanly chastity :

“A question is raised about womanly chastity that it originates from a feudal and
capitalist conservative social mind. Women have been trained in such superstitions as,
after life, heaven, hell, purity and impurity, and to safeguard the community interest,
family faithfulness and genealogical purity. Women have been put in the traps of
marriage and have been made the slaves of male members and as a woman’s simple,
gullible mind is not free of superstitions she has accepted chastity as well as the
domination of husband as her due share and dharma. But in reality chastity has no
meaning. It is only fear and superstition that have given rise to such ideas. In the
woman’s path of self development the so called sexual purity is a great danger, a great
obstruction and bondage …..

In considering the above factors, one may say that it is only a partial social truth. It has
been seen that wherever the society has put the pressure of chastity or purity on
women, it has led to real failure in social and family discipline as well as in conjugal life.
But it does not mean that chastity is a barbaric or uncivilized superstition and an empty
system. The chastity or sexual purity on its own, all along, from the primitive times, has
made the woman what she is – civilized, graceful and respected. It did not originate in
feudalism or capitalism, because in fact, it is no system. The chastity is a culture to
arrive at feminism, the real essence of a woman ….. A woman’s never - fading ideal,
and never – failing culture is chastity. It is independent of place, time, condition and
container. It is correct that the negatively motivated and ritualistic social and familial
chastity is without any worth as the geneological family culture or tradition carries it
through. The real chastity or sexual purity is a woman’s personal consideration. It is
born out of the inspiration provided by good sense, and because of that it makes
women more adorable than men, and gives them a valuable and distinct place and
respect.”

However, there have been revolutionary changes in the image of woman portrayed in
post-independent oriya poems. Most writers still see woman basically in the role of an
ideal wife and mother. Education and economic independence gave rise to an articulate
and confident woman, prepared to look for solutions to her problems. But this is
essentially an urban phenomenon. The conceptual issues involved are purity and virtue
in relation to sex and marriage, the assertion of the self as against abnegation of the
self, and self indulgence as against self denial. The responses to these existential
dilemmas also fall into paradigms of celebration and lament, acceptance and refusal,
conformity and protest.

In the writings of Ranjjta, Pratibha and Manorama, the socio-psychological problems of

women are elucidated. Freud’s theory of psycho-analysis and Marxist philosophy have
influenced contemporary writing.
The portrayal of woman is characterized by contradictions – a tug of war between a
conventional image and a protesting voice. Two overall views of woman are identified
from this comparative study-the Draupadi syndrome and the Sita syndrome. Loyalty is
all in all in the Sita types. There is greater appreciation of the worth of a woman as an
individual in the Draupadi type. The picture of woman in modern, post-independent
poetry differs from the earlier one in the recognition of her physical and psychological
needs. A radical trend towards doing away with social evil and social conventions that
offend the dignity of women is noticed in modern poetry.

However, it is important to observe that even in these modern times, there are
characters who either live in the conventional old style or are a combination of the old
and the new. On the whole, this image is of great dignity and dynamism, a combination
of the images of Sita and Draupadi.

This study is an exploration of how society views woman (since literature is said to be
the reflection of society) and what mental conception of woman, women writers, as
creative artists have. The poems selected attempt to look at two views – the public view
of woman as represented in literature and the writers private understanding of woman
as an individual and also as a member of society. The broadly general image of woman
in literature identifies the real status accorded to woman in society – as mother, wife,
daughter, in that order – in a familial setting. In more modern times, she is accepted as
a professional, but when she protests against injustice and exploitation, is grudgingly
termed activist and seen as a rebel. She is the new woman – a person who is neither
subjugated or deified, but a human person who is desirous of living in society as a
responsible member with equal rights and freedom to pursue her own goals.

A few poems also look at a woman stepping out of domesticity into the public life as an
outcome of the freedom struggle, or economic necessity. There is also another
necessity, that is a strong urge to fulfill one’s potential and a desire for a bigger and
broaderhorizon
It was by the pen of male writers that the image of woman was created as we see it in
literature to-day. It is the male writer who has painted with his pattern of words her
image in the mould of his own desires and whims, fancies and dreams, love and hate –
sometimes with regard and at other times with venom.

The male writer had before him the glorious examples of womanhood from history, from
legends and from some other sources – women like the mystic Meera, the brave and
heroic Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, the epitome of sacrifice Jaimati, Padmini and so many
others. So it was natural that these noble women were influential in forming a certain
image of women in the minds of male writers and the women they created reflected
their virtues.

For ages, women were dominated by man in every field. They were denied education,
social freedom and political rights for a long time. It is only from the 19 th century that
their lot has improved to some extent. Till then, the image of woman in Indian literature
has been the creation of dominantly male writers. So we may say that it is male writers
who have opened in the door for women to fight for their rights and equal position in
society. Gradually the women writers have come to the front and claimed their rightful
place in Indian literature.

Among the Indian writers probably it was Mirza Mohammad Rushva (1858-1931), who
first portrayed the true picture of a woman in his work, Umrao Jan Ada, which he wrote
in Urdu in 1899. This book gives us a remarkable portrait of a courtesan, Umrao Jaan,
who was a famous singer and dancer of her time. The author himself knew the lady
personally, and wrote the work inspired by his personal experience. The period of the
story is based round about the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. It is a heart-rending tale of the
kidnapping of a seven year old girl, by an enemy of her father, and selling her to a
house of ill-repute in the lanes of Lucknow. Umrao Jan Ada is a fine example of a life
story written by a male writer, with such true feelings that it comes out very vividly in a
realistic mould. The author himself has written about this character in the following
words : “Wise men have divided sins into two kinds. The first are those which affect
only the sinner, and the second those whose effect extends to others. In my humble
opinion the first are minor sins, and the second are major sins, and sins that affect
others can be forgiven only by those whom they have harmed ….” It is said that Rushva
saw Umrao Jaan, as the victim of other’s sins against her.

Probably for the first time in a novel, the tears and blood of a helpless women sold into
the slavery of flesh trade is shown so realistically, and it is no wonder that it created a
stir in Indian literature.

In his novels, Sarat Chandra moulded his women in all their different aspects of love,
chastity, tenderness, loyalty, sacrifice and also in their darker shades of nature, in such
an attractive palette of dark and bright colours, that the readers found these women
characters just irresistible. Sarat Chandra’s novels were translated into almost all the
Indian languages. In fact he is the most translated novelist in India, even more than
Tagore. People translated Sarat Chandra’s novels out of love for his writing and not for
any commercial motive or through any patronage of government agencies or literary
institutions.
Even in Assam, though almost everyone knew Bengali at that time and could read the
novels of Sarat Chandra in the original language, the Assamese people translated them
into Assamese and Sarat Chandra became one of the most favourite novelists in
Assam.

If we go through Oriya literature we find the true picture of womanhood in the novels of
Fakir Mohan Senapati in the first decade of the 20 th century, especially in his novel,
Chaamaan Atha Guntha published in 1902. Here the author has written about the life of
the peasant class people. The portrait of exploitation and agony of peasant women that
he has painted, is unbelievable and true. In the novel, the woman character of Saria,
the weaver, whose possessions were snatched away and who was murdered, is heart-
rending. On the other hand, another woman character Champa is the epitome of evil.
She represents a certain class of women who, with their evil designs, destroy happy
house-holds. The author himself wrote, “In the life of Mangaraj, two rivers used to flow –
one is turbulent and full with poisonous snakes and crocodiles, and even destroys its
banks, and on the other hand, the second river is invisible, peaceful and pure. In the
end, after the death of his wife, Mangaraj understood that this pure flow is no more. If
you place a container of water and another one of wine in front of a drunkard, he will
select the wine and preserve it with care. But in the end, he will realize that the wine is
intoxicating and poisonous, while the water is the source of life itself ……”

Fakir Mohan was the first writer in Oriya who depicted the social problems of women
from a psychological perspective.

This study is a comparative analysis of empowerment in the pre-independent and post-

independent poetry written by women, in Orissa.

The image of woman is central to the study of Literature all over the world. Altering the
context and the special meaning involved, what Shakespeare said of Cleopatra is
indeed true of the woman image in general that

“Age cannot wither

Nor custom stale her infinite variety.”

Woman has inspired literature and has been its pivotal theme too. She herself is also a
creator of literature and therefore a woman’s presence in literature is all pervading.

Literature is like a vast canvas in a framework in which writers portray their characters.
The purpose of this study is to flash light on some of those images and unveil them. In
view of the vastness of the theme, the study does not claim to be exhaustive; it is
selective and representative of the trends in Indian Literature in English.

Literature records life and society’s response to it which is embodied in the author’s
image portrayed in his creation. An exploration of the image of woman in literature
enables us to assess the writer’s vision of them. In a transitional period of our country’s
history when society is changing from tradition to modernity, such an exercise has its
own value. To become aware of the emerging new image of woman is to be aware of
vital issue in our society.

A study of the works of select women writers in Oriya reveal a rich variety of themes-
from the theme of a subservient, conventional woman to that of the new woman. These
select works can be regarded as the mirror of society. To the extent that literature very
largely reflects society in space and time, this description may be accepted for practical
purposes. Any writer, whether he likes it or not, is the product of his own times, tough
he carries within himself what Jawaharlal Nehru called, “the burden of the past”.

Traditionally, ours is a male-dominated society, in which the feminine mystique is

glorified. Woman is supposed to be an ideal wife and an ideal mother and home-maker.
She is expected to be an epitome of virtue. However, the Indian society is a very
complex phenomenon with its own compulsions and irreconcilable contradictions. On
the one hand, it regards woman as “shakti” and on the other, expects her to have a
subdued and submissive existence.

The pre-independent women writers have used their works to voice their rebellion
against the discriminatory practices against women. Most of the women poets of this
era seem to attach utmost value and dignity to their biological and social roles.
Motherhood is generally regarded as the fulfillment of one’s personality and
relationship. An innate reverence for conformity seems to be the second nature of
Indian woman owing to her “samskaras” and mental make-up.

Gradually with independence, in the last fifty years or so, there have been starting
changes in the themes and dilemmas of women poets. Acutely conscious of the
imperative need to review and even discard many of our social and moral codes, the
majority of women poets have attempted to seek the solution within the existing
framework. Thus while it is unanimously agreed that woman’s exploitation, explicit and
implicit should be stopped and that no woman should suffer or be allowed to suffer in
silence, not many question the over-all validity of the family as a basic unit or the
institution of marriage itself. There are good marriages and bad marriages, and it is
sometimes, though not always, considered pardonable, even advisable, to walk out of a
bad marriage.

Education, economic independence and consequent self-assertion have led to the

emergence of a woman who is confident, articulate and assertive. She does not any
longer have to hide or suppress her longings and desires, or succumb to familial, social
or moral pressures against her will.

In the post-independent era, many women poets are projecting the image of a woman
liberated and simultaneously there are many writing in the traditional vein about the
meek, suffering wife and self-abnegating mother.

Poetry of rebellion in India has to be understood with great care in the context of the
heritage of our social laws, our literary audience and its relationship to the inherent
social code.
Empowerment in the social miliu is very justified in most writings. But there is also a
clear indication of a woman trying to self-actualize, fulfill her needs. The modern
woman is engulfed in a sea of loneliness.

This study has concerned itself with following the transition of a woman from the
domestic fold to an individual status of holding herself responsible for her own
intellectual and emotional fulfillment.Among several debatable issues,is the issue of
sharing power and responsibility between man and woman,a general concern
throughout the world,and aptly reflected in poetry.But underlying this concern is a
theme-of mutual integrity,trust and respect.Words have a funny way of trapping our
minds on the way to our tongues,but there are necessary means,even in this
multimedia age for coming to grasps with some of the inarticulate,maybe inarticulable
things women feel.This leads the new age woman to protest.Every protest is an
unabashed attempt to forge an identity towards liberation-a liberation enabling woman
to fulfill her innate capacity so as to be free to create within and around herself.Most
poems throw up the three key questions in relation to freedom-integrity,trust and
respect.
Integrity-the courage to be whole,living in relation to one another in the full poetry of
existence.Trust-there’s that wonderful line in East Coker by Eliot about “there’s only the
trying,again and again,to win what we have lost. In conclusion,some lines from Nancy
Scheibner would be apt:

“My entrance into the world of so-called”social problems”

must be with quiet laughter,or not at all.
The hollow men of anger and bitterness,
The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation,
All must be left to a bygone age.
And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle
For all those myths and oddments
Which oddly we have acquired
And for which we would become unburdened
To create a newer world
To translate the future into the present
There is no need of false revolutions in a world where categories tend to tyrannize our
minds.
And you and I must be free,
not to save the world in a glorious crusade,
But to practice with all the skill of our being,
The art of making possible.”