A Look At Repression English Literature Essay

A Look At Repression English Literature experi workforcetLadies Coupe A novel in parts narrates the tale of half dozen women who meet purely by chance on a short train journey. It traces the starts of the six women as they travel in the ladies compartment. The stories they relate help the protagonists Akhilandeswari to follow resolutions for the tormenting questions that taunt her and enable her to establish her true identity. The other five women belong to different era groups and classes of the society. Their private struggle against the myriad repressive forces instills in Akhila a sense of courage and clarity in transactionion.The repressive forces in their multiple manifestations as venerable attitudes, knowledgeable politics and sexual stereotyping impose a restriction on womens individuality and leads to their marginalization which is effectuated by handed-d make and cultural institutions. Feminist perspective as a cleaning woman centered theory provides strategies for change. As such the feminist principle is an uncompromising pledge and an antidote to completely types of exploitation and repression of women. The fundagenial remnant of feminist perspective, according to Maggie Humm, is to understand womens oppression in terms of race, sexuality, class and sexual preference and how to change it. (Maggie, x)The individualality of woman has been sought to be discredited and distorted and her truly status as human being has brought d experience under the every positionwhelming male domination. Thus, a woman who protests against her depersonalization and annihilation and who walks prohibited of home to live and to be human ar made advised of the futility of her actions. Clearly, the forces of cultural and tender inculcations atomic number 18 too strong to be completely over stick with. We find the Indian women being torn among individual desires and societal expectations.In the tradition bound society care our Indian society, it is no wonder that writers like Anita Nair has reflected such types of repression in her novels. The problem of repression faced by women varies according to their social, cultural and economic status. The tradition bound Indian society considered the very family of little girls a curse and rearing a girl child is more than expensive and risky than a male child, so people dreaded the very return of girls.The girls have to undergo a lot of difficulties in this chauvinistic society, after their difficult entry into this world. Discrimination was shown until now in education. People firmly hope that a girls place is solely at home, so they were reluctant to invest her education. Even when she was educate, she was trained solely in domestic traits. This is because a girl is viewed besides as married woman and a bring forth. in that locationfore, the unrivalled and only nous instituted in her mind, right from her birth was to please the male. This becomes the soul tendency of her aliveness. So, even right from her birth the repressive problems are faced by women.In Ladies Coupe, Anita Nair delineates various women characters and provides a macro picture of womens society. Janaki got married at the age of eighteen. As a girl of eighteen, she is not matured enough to live on the meaning of jointure and what to expect of marriage. Janaki accommodates her body and mind to marriage and what it had to offer her in life. She did not live for her own self she lived for her husband.Janaki didnt know what to expect of marriage. any through her girlhood, marriage was a destination she was being groomed for. She wasnt evaluate to know what it re in ally meant to be married, and incomplete was she curious about it. It would come to her as it had to her mother. (LC 25)As a wife in the olden society, Janaki finds her husband a loving and protecting one in the initial of her life. She is not matured enough to understand her suppressed condition in the patriarchal society. She remembers the words of her mother, He is your husband and you must(prenominal) study whatever he does (LC 25). They have a son and daughter-in-law. They were branded as the golden couple and were exemplary perfect parents. As she got married at a very early age, she doesnt even know that she is suppressed in the bond of marriage. Only at the age of forty-five, she realized that all her desires are oppressed. But, Janaki resents her husbands overbearing nature over their son and revolts against it. She questions his right to control their son and slowly she begins to hate her husbands actions. Janaki could not unlearn what patriarchate had instituted in her. Even the initial revulsion of the physical act in the beginning of her married life, turns into an acceptance of the pleasures hidden in rituals of to determineherness (26). She is confined in the bondage of a wife, mother and well-nigh heavyly the woman that patriarchy has moulded into her.Marriage life is th e next stage of repression. After marriage, a girl becomes a woman and she has various roles to perform. She has to play the roles of a daughter in law, wife, mother and mother in law. Of all the roles mentioned here, the most difficult roles are a woman as daughter-in- law and wife. They could never come out of tradition. The inborn womanish traits of the traditional never allowed them to mould away(predicate) from tradition. They never opposed or questioned their men folk. Instead, they suppress all their emotions and desires and are being controlled by the repressive forces. Janaki, an of age(p) and wise woman, comes out with a meaning of life that all women are prone toI am a woman who has always been looked after. First in that respect was my father and my brothers then my husband. When my husband is gone, there will be my son, waiting to take from where his father let off. Women like me end up being fragile. Our men treat us like princesses. And because of that we loo k down upon women who are strong and who great deal cope by themselves. I believe in that old clich that a home was a womans kingdom. I worked hard to preserve mine and then suddenly one day it didnt matter anymore. My home ceased to interest me, none of the beliefs I had built my life around had any meaning. I thought if I were to lose it all, I would cope. If I ever became alone I would manage perfectly. I was confident about that. I think I was tired of being this fragile creature Now I know that even if I can cope it wouldnt be the same if he wasnt there with me. (22-23)Evelyn Cunningham says that the women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors. They even felt glorified in their sufferings, and if any women had rebellious attitude, the people around them curbed that in the beginning itself. Women were brainwashed right from their birth to be polite, submissive and obedient. She was expected to be chaste and faithful even when her husband was unfaithful.It is not only these illiterate home birds who were afraid to rebel against tyranny and exploitations besides even the educated tolerate wives stuck firmly to the traditional role. Such women inspite of their education considered suffering in their husbands place was utmost better than leading a lonely life.Margaret Shanthi, is one of the important characters in the novel Ladies Coupe novel. She is a chemistry teacher by profession is married to Ebenezer Paulraj, the principal of the school she worked in. He was a pompous self-opinionated individual who successfully destroyed Margarets self-confidence by bullying her always and then treating her as a house asseverateer and a cook. She goes through many physical, mental and spiritual crises. Their marriage had a fairy tale like charm initially which slowly disintegrates when Margaret begins to see the true nature of Ebe. He loved her moreover she dare have no individuality. Margaret initiall y is the little girl who says yes to whatever he says and is out to please him always. Margarets husband wanted her to become a teachable wife. This is the life of the women to look after her home, her husband and her children and give them food she has cooked with her own hands (LC 40). She leads a life of obscurity in some corner of the house all the time pretending to be satisfied and happy. As Kamala Das says in her poem The Suicide,ButI must poseI must pretendI must act the role of a happy womanHappy wife. (227)She is forced to pursue B.Ed though her real interest is to do Ph.D. Ebe insists and forces her to abort their first child which ultimately is the last straw for Margaret. She sees through his dual nature of pretentious subtlety and inner cruelty. His ridiculous theories, derisive despite of her way of house keeping and cooking and collection of defacing books with ugly dra travel only intensifies Margarets hatred. She hates her husband whom she once adorned and worshi pped because her dreams were broken and she comes crashing down to reality, when she is forced to abort her first pregnancy. Gnawed by indecision, guilt and pain, she allows herself to be coerced into it. She sees another side of her husband when after her abortion, a week later, he says I love it when you call me Ebe I like you like this unstained and clean I never want you to change. I want you to remain like this all your life (LC 111). Whenever she tried to voice her feelings with her mother she is advised in turn and like I have said many times before, it is a womans responsibility to keep the marriage happy. workforce have so many pre occupations that they might not have the time or inclination to keep the wheels of a marriage oiled (112).Ebe became more and more over bearing after he becomes the principle of a school. He begins to nag her and find fault in her house keeping and cooking. She begins to hate him. Margarets family cannot accept the idea of a divorce and though she feels stifled in her marriage she continues living with Ebe. Her only consolation is food and she puts on weight. His dual nature, artificial politeness and warmth and inner cruelty his ego, his defacing books with ugly drawings, his various theories and his constant derisive contempt of her, make her suffer intensely.I, Margaret Shanthi did it with the sole desire for revenge. To erode his self-esteem and fluff up the very foundations of his being. To rid this world of a creature who if allowed to remain the way he was, slim, lithe and arrogant, would continue to harvest sorrow with a single-minded joy. (LC 96)repeatedly discouraged by her mother and the fear of the stigma of divorce, she stops short of openly asking questions that torment her mind and soul What about me? Dont Ihave aright tohave anyexpectationsof him?Dont I work as hard as hedoes and more because I plump the house as well (112).Liberation is meaningful, if we do not confine women within the bonds of family. The marriage makes women submissive. This is one of the main repressive forces that every woman in the society is facing. Margaret Shanti is a entire example of how women are repressed upon by male power. The powerlessness is like the colonized who fail to see and appreciate their true worth.Societal expectations far outweigh personal of necessity and so Shanti negates herself again and again. From an ambitious and brilliant student who wants to chart out a career on her own, she becomes a duteous wife to Ebenezer who rouses fear in everyone around him. She silences her aspirations in order to be what Ebenezer wants her to be. She decided to become a teacher instead of working on her decorate. She neglect her hair short. She stopped going to church every Sunday, eating bhelpuri outside and finally agrees to abort her child though she knows that her religion forbids it. As usual, he takes the decisions and I (Shanti) let his voice smooth away my fears. He was Ebe. My Ebe. He was ri ght. He was always right (LC 109). Shashi Deshpande, in her novel The Dark Holds No Terror, defines the lopsided sexual urge equation within the context of urban marital alliances.A wife must always be a few feet behind her husband. If he is an M.A., you should be a B.A Womens magazines will tell you that marriage should be an impact partnership. Thats nonsense. Rubbish. No partnership can ever be equal. It will always be unequal, but take care that its unequal in favor of your husband. (The Dark Holds No Terror 85)The belief that existed in the past and continued to be fresh in the minds of the people was that the man should be the bread winner and woman the home maker in the family. It was the husband who slogs way at job or business, to give the family a decent way of living, fully confident that the wife at home would efficiently manage the house, also look after his parents and children, awaiting his return for a conjugal round of dinner. In the present day, the situation be comes different. Women now demand more space, the rights and chuck up the spongedom because they want to come out of the repressive forces. They are not ready to be submissive and meek as their mothers. The problem of violence against women is not bracing. Women in the context of Indian society have been victims of repression, torture, humiliation and exploitation. All were merely trying to seek fulfillment by playing the role of a devoted wife and a caring mother. Friedan writes,For a woman, as for a man the need for self-fulfillment autonomy, self-realization, independence, individuality, self-actualization is as important as the sexual need, with as serious consequences when it is thwarted. Womens sexual problems are, in this sense, by-products of the suppression of her basic need to drive and fulfill her potentialities as human being, potentialities which the mystique of feminism fulfillment ignores. (282)Nairs women suffer from a system of sex role stereotyping and repress ion that exist under patriarchal social organizations. Of course, patriarchy, in its different forms, has tried in many ways to repress, debase and humiliate women especially through the images represented in cultural and traditional forms. She is supposed only to listen, not to speak only to suffer, not to shriek (42).In Ladies Coupe, Marikolanthu is the last one to narrate her story. She is a young girl and uneducated who is poorly attired and lives in a tamed and controlled environment. She lives in a noisy psycho-social group and she is stressed by it. Hans Seyle, an endocrinologist says that stress is the rate of wear and tear in the body. Her mother works as a cook at the Chettiar household. Her mother stopped her schoolings and allowed only her sons to go for school. Marikolanthu was repeatedly warned by her motherbecause she was easily impressed by people you give your heart too easily,child.They will break itinto thousandpiecesand leave it on the ground for others to tramp le into dust (LC216).On such occasionshe hadalwaysteasedhermother asking her if the heart was a glass bangle (LC216). But her experience results in her realization of the value of hermotherswords.Shesays,But you know what, the heart is a glass bangle. One careless moment and it is shattered. We know that, yet we continue to wear glass bangles. Each time they break, we buy tender ones hoping that these will last longer than the others did. How silly we women are. We should wear bangles made of granite and turn hearts into the same.When the girls are trained in the domestic affairs, the boys are expected to keep away from the domestic traits. Much discrimination are shown in the upbringing of boys and girls. In a male chauvinistic society like India, boys are abandoned a long rope, while the girls are confined at home. Even the girls themselves never minded such discriminations. On the contrary they are well contended with their role. afterwards Marikolanthu is employed as a domesti c helper and also she has to look after Sujata akkas son. She adores that kid but hates her own son Muthu who is born after a rape encounter with Murugesan so she resents the birth of her unwanted son. Her life revolves around the Chettiar household. She looks after the households and in the afternoons, she willingly obeys whenever Sujatha akka needs her for her physical fulfillment and whenever the master needs her for the same. When Sujatha akka learns about her husbands affair, she rejects Marikolanthu and throws her out of the house. Marikolanthu leaves Kanchepuram and before that she mortgages her son Muthu for rupees five thousand at her rapist Murugesans looms. Later, there is a change in her heart when she sees her son fire the pyre of the dead Murugesan. She decides to take care of her son Muthu.Marikolanthu has to face the strains of life herself. She is a victim of repression, a virtual slave, the victim of men, of casteism and of innumerable social in exactlyices. It is that gender bias and oppression of women emerges as a powerful theme of the novel. She is being repressed by Murugesan. The device he uses to control her is rape. She feels defiled and corrupt. She evokes our sympathy when she says,In the distance, I heard the calls. Bogi Bogi The sparks would fly as the bonfire was set alight and the night would crackle with the sound of dried logs and twigs waking up. With my past, my future too had been torched alive. (LC 241)Marikolunthu suffers utmost(a) repression social, familial and financial. It is ultimately love that brings her on the right track where she will find happiness and fulfillment. Her struggle has been one of hate for herself and accommodating with humiliating relationships thereafter. Her calve to bring up her child shows her forming in to a new character. The words ofMarikolunthu could be quoted as an apt conclusion to the motif of the novelWomen are strong. cleaning lady can do everything as well as men. Women can do so me(prenominal) more. But a woman has to seek the vein of strength in herself. It does not show itself naturally. (LC 210)The female body becomes the site of violence in the case of the rape of Marikolanthu. Like the violence unleashed by the colonizer on the powerless colonized, she has to face physical repression and mental torture when left to fend for her. With his brute strength, Murugesan attacks her and she is left helpless. She is different from the other women in the coupe because her experiences are far more painful. The traditional image that a girl forms in her mind is to be submissive, committed, docile and tolerant so that she may prove herself an ideal woman not only for her husband but also for her father in law, mother in law and the other in laws.The Brahmin heroine, Akhila, whose life has been taken out of her control, is a spinster, daughter, sister, aunt and the only provider of her family after the death of her father. Getting fed up with these multiple ro les, she decides to go on a train journey away from family and responsibilities, a journey that will ultimately make her a different woman. In the ladies coupe compartment, she meets five other women each of whom has a story to tell. The stories are all an attempt to answer Akhhilas problematic question. Can a woman stay single and be happy at the same time? Akhila asks such a question because she is being suppressed by all the members of her family. She has never been allowed to live her own life. She questions her family members,Why shouldnt I live alone? Im of able body and mind. I can look after myself. I earn reasonably well. Akhila paused when her voice chocked with tears, and asked me what my desires were or what my dreams are? Did anyone of you ever think of me as a woman? person who has needs and longings just like you do? (LC 206)The protagonist Akhila loses her father at a very young age and since then she has been shouldering the responsibility of the entire family. She served as a clerk in the income tax department. When Akhilas father died, the family responsibility falls on her fragile shoulders. The narrator elucidates When Akhilas father died, cardinal things happened Sunday become just another day of the week and Akhila became the man of the family (LC 75).Manning the responsibility of the family begins to repress her desires. Even her mother does not care about her desires. They have never asked, What about you? Youve been the repoint of this family ever since Appa died. Dont you want a husband, children, a home of your own? (LC 77). Akhila wanted to lead her life with Hari who is younger than herself. But her desires have been repressed by the social norms. Akhila wished for once, someone would see her as a consentaneous being. What Akhila most want in the world was to be her own person in a place that was her own. To do as she pleased. To live as she chose with neither restraint nor fear of censure (LC 201).Akhilas youthful days were spent bringing up her sister Padma and two brothers Narayan and Narsi. They are happily married and settled. She is seen as a bread winner and they continue to suppress her desires with their needs and demands. Akhila says Dont you think you should wait for your elder sister to get married before you think of a wife and a family? (LC 77). Her selfish siblings were concerned only about their own well-being. They married and moved on in life without even bothering to think about Akhilas future. Akhila has wasted away her precious youthful days and when she finally mustered the courage to make a difference in life she was given a lot of advice by her siblings about the dangers of living alone as a spinster. Her sister Padma needed the financial support of Akhila to run the household. The brothers Narayan and Narsi were worried about society.Narsi its improper for a woman to live alone. What will society say? That your family has abandoned you. Besides, there will be a whole lot of que stions that will pop up about your reputation. You know how people put two and two together and come up with six. Nalinis family will be scandalized if they hear about this. Have you thought of how embarrassing my position will be? (Ladies Coupe 205)Akhilas brother tried to smoothen her ruffled feathers. He said that he owed his life to his sister. But he too was worried about Akhilas decision to live alone. He said, How will you cope? This is not a reflection on who you are. How can any woman cope alone? (206). Thus a patriarchal society did not approve o a womans decision to live alone without the protection of the men of the house, even if they financially depended on the women. Akhila saw the irony of the situation and later developed the succor to overcome such imperious systems.Initially Akhila undertakes the journey to Kanyakumari as a form of scat. Akhila is placed in a situation of unfamiliarity and dislocation precisely because her struggle for identity should come out m ore clearly. What she hated most was not having an identity of her own. She was always an extension of someone elses identity. Chandras daughter, Narayans Akka, Priyas aunt she wished for someone would see her as a whole being.Akhila undertakes this journey as a form of escape, a desire to go away alone, a sense of excitement of being able to do something all by herself, not having to take permission, of taking an independent decision. She moves on to see what has never been seen, go where she has never gone before. Akhilas journey begins with a sense of escape the smell of a railway platform at night fills Akhila with a sense of escape (1).Always the daughter, the sister, the aunt or the provider, she had no time to accomplish herself, until one day she bought for herself a one-day ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari. She is gloriously alone for the first time in her life and is determined to break free from all that her conservative Tamil Brahmin life had forced on her. Akh ila had always dreamt of this eyes looking ahead. Of leaving. Of running away. Of pulling out. Of escaping(1). Akhila has never done anything that she desired to, but only what she was expected to do. But now she has a strong desire to be free and want to experience the real happiness of freedom. She decides to go the lands end to make a new beginning of experiencing the real meaning of freedom. And we are introduced to Akhila as that sort of a woman (who) does what is expected of her(1).In their minds Akhila has ceased to be a woman and had already metamorphosed into a spinster. Akhila is a woman who is throbbing with life, vitality and sexuality. All these are suppressed to cater to the needs of her family. Akhila understands that matrimony is a patriarchal practice which sanctions men power to overpower woman. All the women characters in Ladies Coupe have been affected in one way or other because of patriarchal system. It provides an insight into emotional challenges of each of the women overcame in their life. It is the emotional outburst of the deprived women that Akhila has tried to portray. Women hesitate to take decision on their own and they think marriage is the ultimate aim of their life and pleasing their husband is a main concern of women. In the due course, they failed to create identity of their own. The self abnegation of women goes unacknowledged in a patriarchal society and this leads to the self abasement of womens importance in society. A woman in the post independence era is aware of the discrimination she has to face, the sexual harassment and violence which she explores in the male dominated society.Nair discusses marital rape perpetrated by the modern Indian male in her novels. The restrictions familiar in Indian family prevent the Indian girls from youthful love before marriage. Girls are generally not allowed to mix with boys during their adolescence. The girls feelings are not shown as they are rarely expressed in real life. It is common for all girls in the middle class to express their love or make decisions. As the girls are confined at home the most part of their pleasing others becomes their prime duty at home. Shashi Deshpande rightly judges that, everything in girls life, it seemed was shaped to that single purpose of pleasing a male (79).The novel Mistress discusses the sexual violence and the repressive power of Shyam in the marital relationship of Shyam and Radha. This novel revolves around the life of Radha, Shyam and their morbid marriage against the backdrop of the narratives of Radhas uncle Koman, who is a Kathakali exponent. Her unhappy situation in the ill matched marriage drives her into the arms of Chris, an American writer. The novel culminates in Radha finding her own voice and deciding to go against the repressive force of her husband.The most remarkable part of the novel is the characterization of Shyam, which is a perfect mould of a modern, educated, tech savvy Indian male who finds it hard to shed his traditional role as a man. Nair has given Shyam his own voice through his first person narrative and thereby taking the reader straight into his mind. Shyam is a twenty first century male through and through. He is extremely successful in his business, which is his undoing in a sense. He is never reluctant to turn any opportunity into a money making venture. His only failure perhaps is his inability to understand his wife and treat her as an individual who has a mind for her own. To him, Radha is another possession, which he is proud of, as he is of his business ventures. He often refers to her as My Radha (90) as if to affirm his ownership.Simone de Beauvoir speaks about this masculine trait in The Second SexSubordinated economically and socially to her husband, the good wife is the mans most precious treasure. She belongs to him so profoundly that she partakes the same essence as he she has his name, his gods, and he is responsible for her. He calls her his b etter half. He takes pride in his wife as he does in his house, his lands, his flocks, and his wealth and sometimes even more through her he displays his power before the world she is his measure and his earthly portion. (207)Shyams idea of marriage is to keep a pretty wife, indulge in her wishful fancies and make her dependent on him. He does not want an assertive woman as a wife. Radha and Shyam are incompatible in many ways and Radha feels suffocated by her marriage. She compares herself to the butterfly which can be taken as a good example of repression.His arms pins me to the bed. His bed. I think that for Shyam, I am a possession. A much cherished possession. That is my role in his life. He doesnt want an equal what he wants is a mistress. Someone to indulge and someone to indulge him with feminine wiles I think of the butterfly I caught and pinned to a board when it was still alive, its wings spread so as to display the markings, oblivious that somewhere within, a little hea rt beat, yearning to fly. I am that butterfly now. (Mistress 87)Feminism voices the new womans demand to be treated as an equal human being, rather than a piece of furniture meant for the convenience of man. The repression of woman is expressed well in the novels of women writers in all its intensity. Shyam wanted to prove that he is the husband and he has complete right over his wifes body whether she welcomes the intrusion or not. Shyams perpetrate acts of sexual violence leaves a deep scar on Radha, where as, he is quite satisfied with what he has done without any remorse. He is blind in his interest and does not care for Radhas feelings. His only aim is to bring her under control by suppressing her desires and emotions.The key to happiness in marriage is the ability to endure and go on. But there are many marriages where women are dominated by their husbands and do not find freedom and space in their marital life. There is a new breed of women who is questioning the very instit ution of marriage and the double standards of judgment applied to women and men. Panduranga Rao rightly admires that,Given the limitations of tradition and its inhibitive influence one cannot but admire the guts of these women who have taken it upon themselves to question and question logically what comes to be accepted as a divine fiat in matters of man-woman relationship and related areas. (Ra0 75)For Shyam, Radha is his proud possession and the marriage between Shyam and Radha fails to be a marriage of minds or hearts. In place of an understanding and meaningful relationship that marriage can be, Shyam wants an unequal relationship that would make Radha his proud possession so the marriage between Shyam and Radha is not a marriage of minds or hearts. Radha has no expectations from the institutions of marriage. Shyam always does things to maintain his prestige. He says I am a survivor everyday and in every way. Im getting better and better (160). This attitude makes Radha uneasy. She is escorted all over and has little freedom to do anything on her own. All her desires and emotions were totally repressed. In her relationship with Shyam she feels,I think that for Shyam, I am a possession. A much cherished possession. That is my role in his life. He doesnt want an equal what he wants is a mistress. Someone to indulge and someone to indulge him with feminine wiles. (Mistress 153)She is blamed always for being disorderly. She never arranged books in the shelf properly. There is a lack of meaningful communication between them which leads to a rift in their relationship. However, Shyam admires Radha in every way and loves her very much. Radha says Shyam likes to think of me prettying myself for him. He prefers a glossy, silly wife to a homely, practical one. Glossy, silly wives are malleable (Mistress 61).She is kept at home like a bird in the cage unable to exhibit her talents. When he prevents her from going to the match factory, a clash occurs again between th em. Radha is also thwarted from taking tuitions in a primary school. Shyams domination over her prevents her from making a choice of her own. This kind of domination makes her feel suffocated and she asks him,Dont I have a right to a