(Re)locating (I)dentity With(in) Politicized (Re)presentation of Fe/Male Body in Kamala Das’ Poetry

Sharmin Sultana ,Nadia Sarwar

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.2p.84

Abstract

This paper is going to argue that the selected poems of renowned Indian poet Kamala Das are inclined to relocate both feminine and masculine identity through the politicized representation of body. Kamala Das’ representation of body in her poems has always been viewed as a medium of re-historicizing the pain, sufferings, and psychological trauma that a woman goes through in a patriarchal society. Though apparently female body seems to be submissive under patriarchal dominance but this paper reveals how female body in Das’ poems acts as a powerful agent over the male body. The objective of this paper is to analyze and evaluate kamala Das’ representation of body to understand the gender reality in a patriarchal society, to question the existing discourse of sexed/gendered identity, to find a new way of viewing to both female and male body. Echoing Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Hall, this paper is going to analyze how Kamala Das represents body as an important factor in her poems to fight back the normative concept of identity based on patriarchal sex and/or gender stereotypes. Keywords: identity, body, sex/gender, performativity, representation

Highlights

With the specific analysis of the representation of both female and male body in Kamala Das’ poem, a politicalconstruction of (I)dentity based on sex/gender binary can be sketched
The female and male body are represented in most of Das’ poems with meticulous details and unconventional edge. Both the female and male body are articulated in her poems as the material expression of pain, sufferings and frustration through the voice of poetic persona, it unravels the complex construction of patriarchal power structure based on the heterosexual sex/gender binary
Resonating Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler in the above mentioned poems, this paper will identify the relationship among body, sex, gender and identity, analyzing how female body acts as an authoritative agent over the male body

Summary

Introduction

With the specific analysis of the representation of both female and male body in Kamala Das’ poem, a political (re)construction of (I)dentity based on sex/gender binary can be sketched. The female and male body are represented in most of Das’ poems with meticulous details and unconventional edge. Apparently, both the female and male body are articulated in her poems as the material expression of pain, sufferings and frustration through the voice of poetic persona, it unravels the complex construction of patriarchal power structure based on the heterosexual sex/gender binary. Kamala Das, in her poems, breaks the silence by rejecting the ‘role’ playing and denying to be ‘represented’ through the patriarchal eye She becomes the representing subject from the represented ‘abject’ by reorganizing both feminine and masculine identity as a social construction. With references to Stuart Hall, this paper is going to argue that the selected poems of Kamala Das one way or other subverts the patriarchal representation of sexed/gendered identity

Literature Review

Performing Identity and Body in Kamala Das’ Poems

Conclusion