Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
DOCTOR OF PN1LOSOPHY
in
ENGLISH
BY
H. KALPANA
Department of English
PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY
MARCH 1995
Contents
Page
Certificate
Declaration
Note on Documentation
Acknowledgements
vii
Abstract
Preface
I--MAPPING OUT
xiv
10
20
24
29
Power Relationships
Extra-marital Relationships
Women Jilted
Male Narrator
Independentmree Women
111--PROVIDENCE
Dead/Absent Mothers
DominantPassive Mothers
Distanced Mothersmaughters
Independent Mothers
IV--VOICES
Family Ties
Sibling Relationships
Friends
Others
Dr. P. Marudanayagam
Professor and Head
Department of English
Pondicherry University
Pondicherry 605 0 14
CERTIFICATE
Pondicheny
Date: 30-3-45
(Dr. P. MARUDANAYAGAM)
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H. KALPANA, M. Phil
Research Scholar
Department of English
Pondicherry University
Pondicheny 605 014
DECLARATION
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Pondicheny
Date: 3s
3 45
~lSignature
(El. KALPANA)
NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION
198 5
1990
Friend of My Youth...........................
FOY
Deshpande' s works
1978
Leg
1986
fiwastheNightingaIe-------- ----------------Gale
Calcutta: Writers Workshop.
1986
Dark
with a brief introduction of the authors and their works, the chapter
proceeds to study the concepts: feminine identity; the short story genre
and women writers; postcolonial literary background; postcolonial ism
and feminism; and the concept of universal sisterhood.
PREFACE
I was greatly impressed by Alice Munro's Pi740 Do You Think You Are?
Being a woman and being aware of society's pressures on women, I was
instantly struck by the plethora of experiences, honestly and truthfully
expressed in the portrayal of Rose, the principal character in the book. I
instantly felt an urge to explore Munro's writing, but my enthusiasm
was short-lived when I realised that securing her works was very
difficult. I, however, pursued my interest, and made a nuisance of
myself in all places in the country having even remote links with
Commonwealth literature. Finally I had managed to read not only four
collections of Munro, but also secured copies of some secondary
material which was an encouraging factor.
incidents--a talk with Prof. Susie Tharu, and the discovery of the work
Women Writing in India, edited by Tharu and K. Lalitha. The richness
of Indian women's literature was a revelation and I was ashamed of my
ignorance of these writers. These related incidents initiated me not only
to survey Indian women's literature, but also to include an Indian writer
in the doctoral thesis. The final decision I reached was to explore the
writings of Alice Munro and Shashi Deshpande, and the short story
genre. To make my stand clear I have chalked out a long introduction,
but at this point, I prefer to make just three statements with regard to my
fascination for Munro's
and Deshpande's
works.
The main
considerations were:
The experiences within the works of these writers were easy for
* There was not much research done in the area of short stories,
and particularly so when it came to the short stories of Deshpande.
The task undertaken was not an easy one as the writers belonged to
1993. This grant has helped me considerably in continuing the work and
completing it.
CHAPTER I
MAPPING OUT
Older, they become round and hard, demand
shapes that are real, castles on the shore
and all the lines and angles of tradition
are mustered for them in their eagerness
to become whole, fit themselves to the thing
they see outside them,
while the thing they left
lies like a caul in some abandoned place,
unremembered by fingers or the incredibly bright
stones, which for a time replace their eyes.
The sketch of the authors and their works leads to the topic of
other factors.
You (1 974), kt710 DO You Think You Are? (1 978), The Moons of Jupiter
(1982), The Progress ofLove (1987), and Friend of My Youth (1990);
and Deshpande's The Legacy (1978), The Miracle (1986), It was the
Nightingale ( 1 986), it was Dark (1 986), and The Infmsion and Other
S ~ r i e s(1993). The succeeding chapters are divided on the basis of
various relationships that exist between the women characters and others
in the short stories.
General's award. 1971 saw the release of the collection, Lives of Girls
and Women6 and in 1974, her third collection, Something I've Been
5 This
6LGW and WDY are sequence stories, i. e. they are "a volume of
stories, collected and organized by their author, in which the reader
successively realizes underlying pattern and rheme7' (1989: 148). (Munro
has described LGW as a novel but I consider it as a short story sequence.
Munro herself has admitted to writing the parts at different times and
not continuosly in a sequence as a novel is generally done. Moreover
critics have viewed it both as a collection of short stories and as a novel,
thereby endowing an ambivalent identity on this book.) Robert M.
Luscher in "The Short Story Sequence: An Open Book" makes some
very interesting observations on such sequence stories. He refutes
Calisher's idea that the identity of the the short story is threatened, he
Meaning To Tell You was published. This was followed by Who Do You
Think You Are (1978), which was also chosen for the Governor-
down in Bangalore. She started writing in earnest only from 1970. Her
initial writings were short stories which were published in various
magazines. They were collected and compiled by the Writers Workshop
points out that instead in linked stories the stories gain contexts,
characters, symbols and themes, thus providing a richer identity to the
format. He adds that they act as unique hybrids providing the pleasure of
the "patterned closure of individual stories and the discovery of larger
unifying strategies that transcend apparent gaps between stories"
(1989: 148-150). Therefore there is more room for subjective
interpretation and active participation; the reader's task thus becomes
simultaneously more difficult and more rewarding" (1989: 158).
The Binding Vine (1993)--and she gained recognition when That Long
Silence was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award in 1987.
Feminine Identity
The theme of feminine identity takes a new meaning when we
encourage ourselves to understand works of other countries by
transporting ourselves into new lands, and questioning the literary works
based on the sociological background and settings of that particular
region. Such a process is not an easy one, and it may give rise to a
number of unresolved trends in postcolonial writing. There is
satisfaction, nevertheless, in raking up this rich mass of literature, and
attempting to understand it. I am not overtly concerned at the moment
with solutions to the problems that the women characters in the short
stories of Mun1-0 and Deshpande experience, but with the ability to
atleast minimally understand and sympathise with the nature and
explore the possibilities and the potential of being women, and their
abilities to reshape themselves.
are told that they are inferior to men, they are weak, passive and it is
feminine to be gentle, obedient and sacrificing. It is, therefore, essential
to identify, and to know the true nature of oneself. In this context, an
awareness of femaleness and an identification with other women can
lead to an understanding of the gendered power relations existing within
The final problem that one faces is in the definition of the short
story. Norman Friedmanlo thinks that all narrative fiction in prose which
is short can be taken into this category. He proceeds to use two methods,
namely, inductive and deductive methods to classify this category. He
granted that one has a rough idea of the structure and the only thing
necessary is a way of conceptualising it, then it can be termed as
inductive methodology. He further states that "The first approach fits the
evidence to the definition, whereas the second fits the definition to the
evidence". He does mention that both of these approaches have their
drawbacks--the deductive method already assumes there is a point
which cannot be wrong and the inductive method implies assumptions
lo
Story Theories" in Lohafer's Short Story at the Crossroads (1989: 133 1). What is stated here is only a brief summary.
~'
end effect" (1989:30). Thus, the important point is to keep the definition
constant but to vary and combine the other traits to get different types of
short stories (eg, the biblical short story, the modem short story, etc)
which differ extragenerically but which could help in showing how the
form differs from other stories. The definition has to be suited to the
facts and not the facts to the definition. (1989:30-3 1). Mary Rohrberger
tries to define the short story but she too finds that the form cannot be
easily pinned down and she thinks that the whole issue moves around in
a circle without coming to a central point. She therefore emphasises two
ideas: i) Robert Scholes theory that "'generic study.. .[is] the central
element in a poetics of fiction"'; ii) "Another is that as long as we
articulate and exchange information, we live, continuing to define
ourselves and our creations in the only ways we can. We have no
options. We simply go on from where we are, somewhere between
Genre Question". He feels that defining the short story has two
problems, namely, historical and theoretical. He explains these terms by
referring to Tzvetan Todorov's distinctions. According to Todorov's
theory (which Wright surnmarises) the theoretical genre is "established
l 1 It
story seems to be ideal for women writers in terms of time and space;
For women, being burdened with a number of chores have little time
and space to spend on writing.12
When he refers to time, he means not the length of time but more the
distance that the text creates between the observer and itself. Thus the
space of the novel is more and therefore it takes longer for one to
comprehend it. iii) The third analogy is taken from economics and he
states that the novel is macro form while the short story is micro form.
Thus the "short story is a micro-form, space-time, exoskeletal
phenomenon..." (1989: 193-198).
This argument is supported by many writers: Di Brandt in an
interview states that when her children were born, it was a problem for
her to find time and space to write (1993:44). Atwood, too, shares this
anxiety and wonders if one could be a woman writer and at the same
time be happily married with children. Her answer to this is an
interesting revelation. She points out that many earlier women writers-Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Christina
Rossetti--were unmarried or chidless or had died early. She feels that the
husbands' demands could thwart the progress of the art (Scheier,
1990:17). One notices that Deshpande's earlier works were short stories
and also that she began writing late in life. The biographical note to The
Intrusion and Other Stories mentions that the early years of her
marriage were largely devoted to the care of her two young sons. Gail
Scott in her essay, "Shaping A Vehicle For Her Use" queries:
How does a woman choose a form to write in? Is there a
connection between the form she chooses and the
circumstances of her life?...So, in answer to the question, is
the story really to be privileged over longer fiction, the
materialist in me is tempted to reply: a woman's
socioeconomic situation may be a determining factor. Maybe
she has a job; maybe she has children. In terms of time, a
woman's life is never simple; she must put aside her writing
to do a million other things. To make matters worse, her
socialization has trained her to keep her mind so cluttered with
details that concentration on a longer work is often, at least
initially, difficult....(1983: 69-70).
The meagre yet reflective data tell us that women writers do not
have much time and space to write, and the short story form is
particularly suitable for the brevity of the forrn is easier to handle in
terms of time and space.
writings). The only difference is that due to the brevity of the short
storylj, these impressionistic characteristics seem to be intensified.
Therefore, she argues that the modem short story is not a separate genre,
but just a different form of impressionism (1 982: 14-15).
Moving back to the link between short stories and oral narratives,
one notices that the oral narrative projects a sense of togetherness and an
atmosphere of a community gathering. This aspect has helped in
recreating an environment of closeness in short story writing by women.
l3Friedrnan, however, finds fault with her ideas and thinks that
"Her way of handling this problem is to argue that since modernism is in
part a matter of leaving things out, and since the short story has fewer
parts to begin with, modernism affects the story more sharply than it
does the novel" (1989:21). My reason for mentioning Ferguson is to
point out the traits which, I strongly feel are apparent in women's
writing.
life" (1983:2). It is easy to see the affinity that women have with this
form--women are subjected to intemalising their experiences and hence
they are highly self-conscious. Moreover, women are generally
considered to be 'instinctive' and 'sensual' in comparison to men, and
3
because of these traits they are able to relate easily to the form of the
short story which is intense and compressed. Also, being sensual and
sensitive, they absorb more of what happens around them and they are
--
but that is
t o - you(1983:12).
(1988:9).14
writers write of experiences alien to them, and their texts were written to
gain approval from the imperialists. (Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt,
Sarojini Naidu.) This stance of writing to please or gain approval has
changed in recent years and writers adapted the colonial tongue to strike
back at the rulers. Postcolonial writing uses innovative techniques and
creates a new language separate from the standard language of the
imperialists. This is illustrated by Rushdie's Midnight's Children or
Raja Rao's Kanthapura. Postcolonial writers have ably used the English
language to create today not only an English language, but a number of
English languages. The writers are doubly endowed by being able to
straddle two worlds--their homelands and the colonisers land--by the
use of this language. They use the coloniser's tongue to write
"'decolonising fictions', texts that write back against imperial fictions
and texts that incorporate alternative ways of seeing and living in the
world" (Brydon & Tiffin, 1993:11). Pico Iyer in a discussion of
postcolonial writing15 remarks that the idea of centre and periphery has
concerned with the discourse that has arisen from a colonial context. It
is a term used to "cover all the culture affected by the imperial process
from the moment of colonization to the present day7' (Ashcroft et al,
1989: 2).
been turned upside down and what was the "eccentric" world is today
the world's centrel6. Postcolonial writing, thus tries to revisualise reality
and rejects the established order in the process of decolonising
(1989: 4-5).
present one finds that there is not only a body of creative writing, but
also a body of criticism spearheaded by critics and academics such as
Susie Tharu, Kumkum Sangari, Ketu H. Katrak, Meenakshi Mukherjee,
Arun Prabha Mukherjee, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, K. Lalitha,
Tejaswini Niranj ana, Kalpana Ram, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, and
Gayatri Chakravarthi Spivak. Some of these women are rooted in India
while others are in Western countries from where they are able to
introduce their ideas into the large body of western criticism. These
critics have not only created an awareness of Indian women, but also in
a generalised way of 'Third' world women too.
level
which
addresses
questions
of
representation
etc" (1 99 1 :2 E ).
use a language that has been created by patriarchy. One may argue that
postcolonial countries do not have a language, but as Ashcroft points out
there is a preexisting language in all societies, and it is women who
among other things, to undo the political rhetoric of our
tradition, which is a rhetoric of polarities, as Lola said. So
feminist writing as an activity is - has to be iconoclastic ....
that we should move away from our obsession with identity to
a concern with difference, from wholeness to incompleteness,
from representation to presentation. This kind of movement is,
for me, a political gesture that deflects the status quo, be it
literary or social (1 993 : 137- 138).
create a new language'o from the existing one. The construction and
perception of such a language, says it'hitlocl;. can be called "female
naturalism" (a term she bonou~sfrom Kay Ferres) kvhich means women
writing about sensual experiences such as touch, taste. hearing, and
smell, or referring to details like food. and clothing, or attempting to
chronicle their lives in terms of events like birth, death, and marriage
(1989: xxxi).
writing, thus discusses the position of the victim, and here I restate very
briefly what Atwood has discussed at great length in her critical work
Survival:there is the position where you deny the fact that you are the
victim or acknowledge that you are a victim but explain your position as
the will of God, fate or the dictates of biology. There is also the position
where you acknowledge the fact that you are a victim but refuse to
accept that the role is inevitable (1972: 36-37).
and domination, whereas women are the victims and subjects of these
atrocities. This is not to state that all writing pursues this role model, but
this image has clearly been the one mast projected when dealing with
man-woman relationships in societies. .A growing body of women
protesting against the fact of women all m7er the world being a
"coherent group with identical interests and desires" has in recent years
been challenged by many women. These women argue that "sisterhood
cannot be assumed on the basis of gender; it must be forged in concrete,
historical and political practice and analysis" (Mohanty, 1984: 337 &
339).
of man and can act accordingly, while an educated middle class woman
may know what is happening to her, but is restricted from acting
because of social conventions. There may be other women who are
totally ignorant of what is happening to them, and may accept the power
relationship matter of factly. Also the position of women in India is
different from that of western women--the former are economically
named (1 99 1:351).
discuss women and their relationship with others. The aim of the project
has been "to make an important contribution to our understanding of
CHAPTER II
N AND A WOMAN
Now, what specifically defines the situation of
woman is that she - a kee and autonomous being
like all human creatures - nevertheless discovers and
chooses herself in a world where men compel her to
assume the status of the Other. They propose to turn
her into an object and to doom her to immanence
since her transcendence is for ever to be transcended
by another consciousness which is essential and
sovereign. The drama of woman lies in this conflict
between the fundamental aspirations of every
subject - which always posits itself as essential - and
the demands of a situation which constitutes her as
inessential.
--Beauvoir (198429)
of the stories questions and probes the concept of marriage, the concept
of sexuality and the awareness that is nurtured in women through these
bondings.
companionship,
understanding,
security,
sex,
etc.
22This division is not very rigid and I am aware that one story can
h c t i o n in two or more categories. My aim has been to take the most
prominent idea that the story depicts. A second factor that has to be
considered is that though I discuss rnarital/sexual relationships, the story
may at the same time reveal other relationships too.
themselves from the bond of marriage. They depict the women who are
able to shape their individual personalities and exist as New &'omen.
Silent sufferers
Only two of Deshpande's stories can be grouped into this category.
None of Munro7scharacters portray such subservient, obedient attitudes
and this could be due to the awareness that women already have in
Canadian society.
namely, "And What's A Son" (Gale), and "A Wall is Safer" (Dark).
"And What's A Son" (Gale) discusses a wife who assumes an extremely
subservient and obsequious personality. On the other hand the wife in
"A Wall is Safer" (Dark) is quite aware of her position, is educated and
yet does not want to change.
claiming that she is the widow of his dead son, Harsh. The toiyn people
do not n7ag their tongues because "it was as much his reputation for
absolute integrity as his wife's staunch acceptance of the younger
woman that kept scandalous tongues at abeyance" (Gale : 21). One day,
some months after the death of the old man, the child falls ill, and the
doctor diagnoses the problem as asthma. It is only then that the widow
of the man remarks that the child's father was not her son, Harsh, but
her own husband. She had known the truth when the woman had come
to their home, and had also been aware of her husband's weakness for
women from the lower classes. Even though she knows his weakness,
she is silent about the whole affair. Moreover she is pleased about her
husband's virility and thinks that "At his age...it was a miracle, no less7'
(Gale: 24).
food". For her it is a question of survival because her husband gives all
In the first story, the housewife displays pride in her husband but
she does not think even once of the other woman. The reason for this
may be the hierarchial power structure existing in Indian society. When
a woman mistreats another woman, she enhances the total power of men
as a group within patriarchy. In other words women are able to get
powerful men. The story plays not only on the comventional selfsacrifice of the wife but it also reveals the poiver of man and the need
for a male child. A third factor is the exploitation of people from the
lower classes.
The second story reveals that women like Sitabai when illtreated
are unable to offer effective resistence because of their dependence and
vulnerability. No alternative sources of support are available to most
women outside their family in the Indian society. There is nowhere else
they can go, if they suffer abuse and neglect. The other woman, Hema,
suffers and gives up her career for maintaining the harmony of the
family. She does have aspirations but is able to forfeit it. In the process,
she thwarts her own selfhood and becomes a self-effacing personality.
One wonders, (at this point) why women are silent and bear all
problems stoically. It is true that they are trained to undergo suffering
a flight from reality or a symbolic struggle against it" (1984: 375). She
Eurthers states that:
Woman plays the part of those secret agents who are left to
the firing squad if they get caught. and are loaded r ~ i t h
rewards if they succeed; it is for her to shoulder all man's
immorality: all women, not only the prostitute, senre as sewer
to the shining, wholesome edifice where respectable people
have their abode. qTbenen, thereupon, to these bvomen one
speaks of dignity, honour, loyalty, of all the lofty masculine
Women in a Predicament
Generally many women are unable to get out of their relationship
in most cases are aware of their positions and roles as can be seen in
Deshpande's "Why a Robin" (Leg), "A Man and A Woman" (Gale),
(MO*
The main problem she realizes is that she has denied and sacrificed
so much that she has lost herself. She fails to recognise her desire and
wants. She realises that without wantsidesires of one's own, a person
loses one's ego! "That without wants, there is no I". In contrast to the
women characters in "And What's a Son" (Gale) and "A Wall is Safer"
"A
Lalita, a widow. Lalita recognises that with the death of her husband,
life has become dead. She notices that small joys of life become big
issues in the eyes of society. Her desire for "a red and blue sari" meets
with such astonishment that she feels that as if "she had danced naked
on the street" (Gale:37). Her delight and laughter at her child's attempt
to stand up is greeted with the words, "...My God, Lalita, You! ...You
think it looks nice to laugh like that?" (Gale: 30). And thus she had been
made to sacrifice all joy of living as her husband was dead. Lalita's
agony is increased when her repressed physical desires are kindled by
the sexual advances of Ajit, her seventeen year old brother-in-law. She
feels guilty about her sexuality and also feels imprisoned by the kind of
circumscribed life that she has to lead which provides "no outlet for her
vitality, her energy" (Gale: 37).
In an attempt to share her agony and guilt, she discusses the issue
with Manu, her dead husband's friend who has been crippled by an
accident. Her sense of guilt is nurtured by her Indian upbringing which
has invoked the feeling in her that physical desire is evil. Manu, on the
other hand, explains to her that the act of sex is natural, and one need
not feel ashamed of it. Inspite of his explanations she is not convinced
Manu suggests that she could leave the place, but she knows that
she is trapped--her parents are dead and she cannot live on her brother's
sympathy. Moreover her in-laws won't allow her to take away Ramesh,
whom she loves. Manu understands that "she was like a restive colt in
an enclosure struggling to get out. But there was no gate. She had to
jump. And she had lost her legs. Welt, if there was no gate. She had to
make one" (Gale: 39). Finally, Manu suggests to her that they could get
married, for both of them are maimed in life--one physically and the
other mentally. He thinks that they could share their experiences and
fight against society, as both of them had faced "living death", they
could now make life more meaningful. He thus wishes to help her and
erase the guilt within her. He offers her a new beginning, but is Lalita
able to thrust aside her traditional upbringing and accept him is the
point.
Marriage for the sake of economic gain is the basis of "The Valley
and neglected by her husband. She craves for love, and attention but he
does not care for her. He neglects her and she rraiises that he had
married her for her money. He had also slept with her initially, only
because he wished to have a heir. She recollects that he had married her
for the money she earned. She realises after the birth of their son that he
finds her distasteful. He had only put up with her "because of his desire
for a son". After the son was born he had avoided her and she "had shut
out forever all hopes of any human contact" (Dark: 40).
This disregard by him for her sexual needs makes her weave sexual
fantasies. These fantasies are also curbed when she becomes conscious
of her crippled body, she feels guilty for indulging in such dreams. The
story has a cliched ending because the wife in spite of being wronged
feels sony for her husband.
from the drinking pail7' (MOJ: 11 1). This fantasy of hers is partially
realized when she meets an anthropologist whom she refers to as X. She
She then meets a friend of X's called Dennis. The hopes to gain
some infomTion about X through him, but Dennis is too wrapped up in
they are aging love a wider choice and can get younger Ivomen while
women cannot do the same. Thus, women are at a disadirantage. He
further states that men by such choices are able to renew themselves and
gain vitality while the women are removed from life. He, however,
changes his view in the final part of his talk and states that Fwmen are
lucky as they are able to accept loss and death more easily than men. He
concludes by emphasising this point:
( M r n 122)
This talk makes the nanator realise that her life is not meant to
dream about men such as X. She, thus, realises that she has to let go:
"What you have to decide, really is whether to be crazy or not, and I
haven't the stamina, the power, the seething will, for prolonged
craziness" (MUJ 127). Her distancing herself from the man she loves,
she feels, is the way to be reassured of oneself.
This story reflects the predicament that the woman goes through
and how she is finally able to raise herself from the dilemma she
undergoes through.
(SIB: 43-44).
troubled himself to know her likes and dislikes. She thus feels liberated,
free and happy after his death.
...till it came to me one day there were women doing this with
their lives, all over. There were women just waiting and
waiting by mailboxes for one letter or another. I imagined me
making this journey day after day and year after year, and my
hair starting to go grey, and I thought, I was never made to go
on like that. So I stopped meeting the mail. If there were
women all through life waiting, and women busy and not
waiting, I knew which I had to be. Even though there might be
things the second kind of women have to pass up and never
Manu offers her a solution, one wonders if Lalita is able to accept it.
This predicament arises because a woman who wishes to escape needs
to be able to withstand alienation. How many women are strong enough
to withstand such an ostracization is the question. A final point that is
raised in this story as well as others is the rigid attitude towards sex and
sexuality that women display as opposed to the extremely open attitude
revealed by the women characters in Munro's stories.
The story "My Beloved Charioteer" (Dark) once again portrays the
trap that marriage becomes for an Indian wife. The woman is unable to
get out of the situation while Munro's three stories "How I Met My
Husband" (SIB), "Bardon Bus" (MOJ) and "Slaterial"" (SIB) depict the
ability of the Canadian women to m o w out of their predicament.
Though Eddie in "How I Met My Husband" (SIB)waits for the man of
her dreams, she realises that he may not return. Once she becomes aware
of this fact, she marries the postman and settles down. Similarly in
"Bardon Bus" (MOJ) Kay and the narrator are divorced. Both these
women realise the meaning of love. While the narrator in the story has
recognised the illusionary nature of the man-woman relationship, her
friend Kay seems to play around with men, falling in and out of love.
Power Relationships
Kate Millett in Sexual Politics points out that the basis for all
power relationships is the male-female relationship. She fiuther states,
"Social caste supercedes all other forms of inegalitarianism: racial,
Male control and power over women in all spheres of life is mhat
constitutes patriarchy and therefore, one needs to eliminate it. But this is
not easy as patriarchal ideology, says Millett has made it certain that
men always love the dominant roles while women love the subordinate
roles. By such a conditioning, men are able to gain the approval of the
women that they oppress. Their oppression is carried out through
institutions such as the academy, the church and the family". These
Mary Daly taking this concept further, states in Pure Lust that
women must create and adopt new understanding, different from men
and thus, develop themselves. She analyses different types of passions -genuine passions, plastic passions and potted passions. She feels that
genuine passions such as love, hate, despair, anger and fear activate and
inspire women, while plastic passions such as guilt, bitterness, boredom
and hostility make women passive and ruin them. She also mentions that
enclosure still plays a major part in the lives of women. These aspects
are part of the issue of domination and socialization as can be witnessed
in some of the stories.
emotions like 'love' when packaged and doled out as pulp romantic
fiction can harm women and she terms such passions that are idealised
and marketed by society, as potted passions.
by his sexual intimacy and is repulsed by his expectations. She feels like
Her anxiety is increased as the day proceeds and she reviews her
marriage to the man. She feels that she has been marketed as a woman
who is "simple and sophisticated. Her desires and feelings are not taken
into consideration by her parents before marriage or her husband. She
has doubts about the marriage but her father brushes them away by
uttering two practical statements; "what's wrong with him? I have two
more daughters to be married" (Leg: 43). She is unable to defend and
argue against these statements and she, therefore quietly submits to the
marriage. After the wedding, the couple go to a small fishing village for
their honeymoon. The newly married bride is however sick o f what the
night holds for her and wishes to escape. But she has no choice. On the
other hand, the husband is not troubled by any such thoughts and is keen
on satisfying his lust. His attempt to hold and kiss her i s shattered by her
attempts to ward him off. The protagonist wishes to know more about
him before she shares her privacy with him. She also hopes that he
would talk to her and familiarise herself with her tastes, her likes, and
her dislikes. But she understands that he is not interested in her inner
feelings and the bond of marriage has given him the power to conquer
her body:
I could do nothing. He put his hands, his lips on mine and this
time I could not move away. There was no talk, no word
between us-just this relentless pounding. His movements had
The views of the mother and daughter differ when they discuss the
way they would have told Flora's story. The mother titles the story as
"The Maiden Lady" and shrouds it with stateliness and reverence". In
her story she wishes to "make her [Flora] into a noble figure. one who
accepts defection, treachery, who forgives and stands aside, not once but
twice" (FOY: 19). The daughter views the story in a different way: "I
had my own ideas about Flora's story...I would take a different tack. I
saw through my mother's story and put in what she left out. My Flora
would be as black as hers was white. (FOY: 20). The reason why the
daughter is against her mother's visualisatio~lis because she feels that
Flora may be evil as she turns away from sex. The story also points out
the sexual power men have over their wives. Robert Deal, Ellie's
husband is aware of the delicate health of his wife, and yet he has sex
with her which results in repeated pregnancies and miscarriages.
Weakened by these miscarriages she finally dies. Robert Deal remarries
the nurse who had been hired to nurse his wife instead of marrying Flora
to whom he had been engaged at the very beginning.
the secret power she holds. She enjoys the moment of meeting Neil
secretly. The secrecy and excuses that she has to make up excites her. In
order to meet Neil she does good deeds such as "cleaning jobs around
the house that she was putting off, mowing the lawn, doing a
reorganisation at the furniture barn, even weeding the rock garden"
(FOE 31). This sense of power makes her feel like the girl in the story
that Neil tells her where the girl used to have sex with young boys by
paying them. The paradox is that she like the young girl in Neil's story
is trapped in her condition. Brenda feels that the absence of Neil, the
possibility of his defection, his denial of her could turn any place, any
thing, ugly and menacing and stupid" (FOK 36).
She has the affair as she wants to have freedom and in the
beginning was reminded when she saw Neil's bed that it was "not a
marriage bed or a bed of illness, comfort, complication". She also "loves
the life of his body, so sure of its rights. She wants commands from him,
never requests. She wants to be his territory" (FOE 41). Brenda by the
end of the story becomes aware that Neil had "lost some of her sheen for
her" (FOE 49) and she comes to the conclusion, that every relationship
can finally turn out to be just a continuation of life.
of how she and Jack too had changed. She realises then even before
Jack's death she had a nervous breakdown and after that incident she
She knew that when she had got out of bed (this is what she
doesn't say), she was leaving some part of herself behind. She
suspected that this was a part that had to do wit11 Jack. But she
didn't think then that any abandonment had to be permanent.
Anyway it couldn't be helped. (FOE 83).
She realises that Jack too had changed from a quiet young
charming man, into a braggart. One distinct ~nernoryshe has of him is
what she had noticed in him one day when she had been travelling to
college. She feels that he had become a dull, grey and insubstantial
person. She thinks of the routine life he led spending a couple of nights
at the legion and other days watching television. His life had become a
is also a remark on the sexual constraints that women have to face. The
woman character, in this story, is enamoured by a freedom fighter and
marries him inspite of the class differences existing between them. Later
after Independence, she discovers that her husband has turned into a
power wielding politician, leading a powerful life.
She falls in love with the man hoping that he too would reciprocate
her love. But she realises that he has no time for love and he is also not
capable of loving another human being. After the birth of children he
man who dies later. She soon realises that "life has lost its meaning
because it relates to nothing but one's own petty concerns" (Leg: 3).
Rather cynically she thinks of a line from the Bible at the end of the
party as she and her husband go up to bed which states that old men
have dreams and young men have visions but now she realises that old
men neither have visions nor young men any dreams. Ironically her last
statement as they go to bed falls on deaf ears as he has removed his
hearing aid and consequently cannot hear her. One finds as one goes
through the story the need for love, the illusory nature of women's
desires and dreams, the craving for comfort and the feeling that there is
no one even to listen to them.
136). Roberta is moreover conscious of her age and feels that being
older than George he may despise her. She realises that for her to be
George, on the other hand, feels that Roberta spoils her children.
He thinks that she placates them, and begs them to do small chores at
home and thereby indulges them. He unconsciously thinks that "if either
of his sisters had ventured on such a display, his mother would have
belted them."(MOJ: 144). This reveals George's conventional attitude.
His authority is emphasised in Eva's statement when she asks him to
take care of her cat: "But will you & Mom take care of Diana when
we're gone?" (MOJ: 145).(ernphasis added). .
has become self effacing after her marriage to George. She feels that
George holds power over her mother. She remarks in her journal entry:
I have seen her change...from a person I deeply respected into
a person on the verge of being a nervous wreck. If this is love
I want no part of it. He wants to enslave her and us all and she
walks a tightrope trying to keep him from getting mad. She
doesn't enjoy anything and if you gave her the choice she
would like best to lie down in a dark room with a cloth over
her eyes and not see anybody or do anything. This is an
(MOJ: 147).
"deprived and powerless and she had an overwhelming feeling "to cover
her head and sit wailing on the ground" (MOJ:53). She scrutinises their
relationship and reflects, "What gave his power? She knows who did but
she asks what and when - when did the transfer take place, when was the
abdication of all pride and sense?" (MOJ 55). She had been humiliated
and embarrassed by Duncan's remarks which were objective analysis of
"her person and behaviour". He did not just mention them but he had
listed them precisely. Some of his remarks had been very intimate in
nature and she had "howled with shame and covered her ears and
begged him to take back or say no more" (MOJ: 53). Lydia understands
that she had given him the power and was now complaining about it.
At the conclusion of the story Lydia has a discussion with one Mr.
Stanley who is also staying there about Willa Cather, the writer. Mr.
Stanley tells her about the advice Cather gives an young man about his
marital life and Lydia can't help pointing out to the old man that Cather
had not married and was staying with another Lvoman. Therefore she
Murray starts having doubts about his wife and Victor. To know the
truth one rainy night he insists that Barbara should take some
bedspreads for Victor. He knows when she returns that Victor has had a
relationship with Barbara. Victor, the day after this incident leaves the
place. One can notice in the narration Barbara's innocence. It is Victor
who views her body, while she is sunbathing. Murray makes Barbara's
body the scene of battle, thus scarring her.
in a cynical and light hearted manner. Within her heart however she is
angered by his remarks. She therefore begins to take things from
George's house and stores them. As Martin says in Paradox and
Parallel: "She does not have the passion to throw an overnight bag at
Gordon , so her response takes a devious form, apparently obscure to
herself because she shows no sign of recognising it for the revenge it is"
(MOJ: 145).
Extra-marital Relationships
Marriage, women realise, is not as romantic as they had
anticipated. It becomes a life of duties and responsibilities and fulfilling
various expectations. In order to escape such constricted/burdened
lifestyles they resort to having affairs with other men. At times they are
married but at other times they are not married and have relationship
with married men in order to experience security and comfort without
being committed. Many of Munro's stories focus on the adulterous
affairs of women in stories such as "Oh, What Avails7' O Y ) ,
"Differently" (FOY) and "Eskimo" (POL).
Joan in "Oh what Avails" (FOI') walks out on her husband arld
children and begins a new life. She explains her desertion by stating that
at that time many parents underwent the phenomenon of separating.
Marriages which had started innocently without any misgivings had
split up (FOE 207). Joan is amazed at the love affairs she has had. Joan
realises as she thinks of her past that that her brother and she had been
taught some values: "They were taught a delicate, special regard for
themselves, which made them go out and grab what they wanted,
whether love or money" (FOE 215). But the difference had been that
while she had not been good in money matters and had grabbed love,
her brother, Morris had grabbed money and had not had a good love life.
double life. Georgia had not been able to lead a life of lies and hypocrisy
and had therefore blown up her own secure, happy life. But she had
been ashamed to reveal to others her happiness with Ben and had always
insisted that she had never been happy:
She had entered with Ben. \i7hen they were both so young. a
world of ceremony, of safety, of gestures, concealment. Fond
appearances. More than appearances. Fond contrivance. (She
thought when she left that she would have no use for
contriving anymore.) She had been happy there, fro111 time to
time. She had been sullen, restless, bewildered, and happy.
But she said most vehemently, Never, never. I was never
happy, she said (FOE 242).
Now, when she meets Raymond she realises that he still thinks that
his dead wife as an ideal wife and tells him to take death differently.
his marriage and he divorces his wife and marries Frances. What is
striking about this story is Frances' awareness of her relationship with
Ted. From the beginning of their relationship she is aware that love is a
sham: "There had been a dreadful air of apology and constraint and
embarrassment about the whole business the worst of it being the moans
and endearments and reassurances they had to offer" ( M U 1 83). She is
every day by routine and she kno\vs how each moment \\.ill be like: "I
knew what he would do next, after eating. He would wash his hands, sit
down with the newspaper in his hands, for exactly five minutes, while I
moved restlessly, wishing he would go away so that I go on with my
day's work ..." (Leg: 67).
Her life changes when one day at her son's school she meets a
widower. Their relationship grows and her dull, mechanical life changes
into an exciting adventure for her. She looks forward to her rendezvous
with him and when he thinks that she must be having guilty feelings, she
explains that she does not because her husband had never cared or
thought of her. This feeling that her husband does not know anything
about her prompts her to arrange for her lover's stay at her place, when
Women Jilted
The theme of cheating and taking up a relationship is witnessed in
"Postcard" (DHS),"Tell Me Yes or No" (SIB)and "Winter Wind"
(SIB).
The narrator, Helen in "Postcard" (DHS) dates a rich man, Clare and
hopes to many him eventually. However, while on a trip to Florida he
is also echoed by Helen's friend, Alma who mentions that "Men are
always out for what they can get" (DHS:26).
The narrator in "Tell Me Yes or No" (SIB) after the death of her
lover visits his town from where she used to get his letters. Over there
she visits the book shop that his wife runs and his wife learning that she
is her husband's girlfriend gives her the packet of letters. Only later the
narrator learns that the letters are not addressed to her but are written for
another woman.
On the other hand, the grand mother had assumed a martyred air
about her as she is angry with her lover and to spite him marries another
man. Even after marriage now and then she met the other man but "no
one ever accused them of misbehaviour". The grandmother seems to
believe in proximity, impossibility, renunciation and the narrator points
out that "this seemed to make an enduring kind of love!" And I believe
that would be my grand mother's choice, that self-glorifying dangerous
self-denying passion, never satisfied, never-risked, to last a lifetime. Not
admitted to, either, except perhaps that one time, one or two times,
under circumstances of great stress (SIB:200).
Male Narrator
The ideas that men have about women are etlidenced in many of
the stories as can be seen by the perception of the male narrator or the
male views.
about it, as if this was what she'd wanted to do all along. Man-haters
from the start" (POL: 33).
about eighteen months ago, he thought she was a little over thirty. He
saw many remnants of girlishness; he loved her fairness and tall
fragility. She has aged since then. And she was older than he thought to
start with-she is nearing forty" (POL: 34). David has already begun to
have another affair with a younger woman, Dina. He not only mentions
his new relationship to Stella but thoughtlessly remarks, "You know,
there's a smell women get... when they know you don't want them
anymore. Stale" (POL: 40).
...the black pelt in the picture has changed to grey. It's a bluish
The black has turned to grey, to the soft, dry color of a plant
mysteriously nourished on the rocks. (POL: 55).
Edgar and Sam have a relationship with Callie in "The Moon in the
Orange Street Skating Rink" (POL). In the story though Edgar and Sam
don't display it they have a sort of superior sense of their selves as once
they remark, "Because she was a little slavey, forever out of things,
queer looking, undersized, and compared to her they were in the
mainstream, they were fortunate" (POL: 142). Callie, however, has a
superior sense of herself and proves it by daring everything:
She finally even goes to the extent of having sex with both of them
and in the act, too, they are the ones who feel inferior. Later on Edgar
proceeds with his sexual intercourses and finally fearing that his sexual
acts may have resulted in consummation, he and Sam run away. But
Callie is too smart to be outwitted, and figuring the young men's
intentions she pursues them . it is at this point that Sam understood,
"Callie's power, when she wouldn't be left behind--generously
distributed to all of them. The moment was flooded --with power, it
seemed, and with possibility" (POL:157).
Years later Sam goes to Gallagher and meets Edgar and Callie. In
their house he sees a photograph of Callie and Edgar and "Callie looks a
good deal older than on her real wedding day, her face broader, heavier,
more authoritative. In fact, she slightly resembles Miss. Kemaghan"
(POL: 158). The story ends stating that Edgar is happy. He seems to be
happy because he is a man who is mentally dependent on someone and
being with the hard-working efficient Callie has given him happiness.
The title reflects the femininity associated with the moon and the power
of this female self at times of need. As Pappington remarks,
"
Thus,
Callie's association are not always true, for her infinitely complex
symbol reveals another contradiction. Callie has power, but she does not
seem to have used it to humiliate her husband7'(POL: 170).
father starts getting anonymous notes. When Violet finds out that it is
her own sister she reveals the truth to her fianck and he refuses to marry
her as he thinks that there may be a streak of lunacy in her family.
"Thanks for the Ride" (DIIS) is told from the male narrator's point
of view. The narrator is a teenager just out of school. The story portrays
the barrenness existent in the town as well as in individual lives. The
desolation and barrenness of the town is narrated.
"
It was a town of
unpaved, wide, sandy streets and bare yards. Only the hardy things like
red and yellow nasturtiums, or a lilac bush with brown centred leaves
grew out of that cracked earth.
"
friend Lois too is a symbol of this bare, desolate atmosphere. She is also
hardy like the nasturtium as she is able to survive the sexual relationship
she has with various men. The narrator is initially upset as she
introduces him to her mother. He wonders if she
"
then to mock me, to make me into the caricature of the Date, the boy
who grins and shuffles in the front hall and waits to be presented to the
nice girls family" (DHS: 50). The narrator after talking to the mother
notices the grandmother and realises that these people are different.
They are not innocent like their mothers or like his cousin George. They
are on the other hand born
"
stressed when Lois tells him about the earlier boyfi-iend, " He just went
around with me for the summer. That's what those guys from up the
beach always do. They come down here to the dances and get a girl to
go around with for the summer they always do" (DHS: 54). She hrther
adds that one has to behave grateful to these boys because otherwise
they would go around and say that these girls are bitching.
It has never been any good again. Always, the same. I spend
hours wondering what is wrong with me. Has the guilt of that
rainy night scarred me so deeply? Meanwhile I wait for
Independentmree Women
"What woman essentially lacks today for doing great things is
forgetfulness of herself; but to forget oneself it is first of all necessary to
be firmly assured that now and for the future one has found oneself'
(1984: 168). These words of Beauvoir indicate the path that women need
working woman, who has taken up the opportunity to further her career
prospects by being away from her husband for two years. She desires
like other women , "to give ambition and success the go by and stay
J a y ' s decision to leave her husband for two years to further her
career prospects; creates a feeling of guilt in her. It is not possible to
wipe out in a few days what has been nurtured within her for a number
of years i.e., the image of a wife. Similarly the husband, though a loving
one, cannot comprehend her as she is so different fi-om the grand-aunt
rather difficult for Jayu, and yet she knows that she has to and she will
live her own life. She is aware of the hurt that she has caused--the hurt
that may never heal. She realises that two years is a little too long, and
the physical distance established between them may ultimately become
a mental one , and yet she decides to do what she has to.
she alone had created for herself' ; she has not sacrificed anything for
she has " always wanted to marry, to have children". She had what she
wanted and she saw no meaning in " life without all this" (Gale: 81).
She wonders if, "This face, this body ....is that all I mean when I say 'I' ?
Is that all.he says when he says 'my wife'? The thing that we have built
between. does it all depend on this face, this body? Love ...I wish I knew
what it meant" (Gale: 82). She rings up her husband, only to find that he
is in a conference. Initially she plans in dressing up, making something
special for tea, hugging him, kissing him and saying 'I love you' when
he returns as counter measures for winning back his love. But she is
proud of her individuality, does not wish to change, and desires that her
personal traits be "careless, a little untidy and incapable of socialising,
of dissemblingy'.She thus decides that, her husband will have to "accept
her as she is" (Gale: 83).
She calmly tells her husband when he returns home the information
that she has received. He is frightened by her calmness and sets out to
reassures her, "promising her a lifetime of fidelity, of loyalty" (Gale:
85). Yet he never speaks of love, and she knows then that he has never
loved her, and at night "as she lay gathering into herself all the trends of
the day" she realizes that her life is her own, and this fact does make her
happy (Gale; 86). She is therefore not bothered about his infidelity as
she had gained whatever she wanted in life. She knows that her life is
her own: "the words the thought grew in her, filling her with a rare arid
fearful happiness, a feeling of being suspended in space and time all by
herself' (Gale: 86). Once again the reaction of the housewife in this
story is totally different from that of several others. She does not rave or
become hysterical on learning of the 'affair', she does not accuse her
husband and, in fact, it is her silence that unsettles her true self, even in
the face of such a serious situation as her husband's infidelity. The story
also foregrounds the fact that the husband has an affair inspite of the fact
that he is happily married, has a nice wife and three kids. This is
motivated by the knowledge that he can get away with this flirtation and
also that he can drop the girl once she loses the cham and glamour she
holds for him.
"
body. I am tied to these things in a way he will never be" (Leg: 47). He
does not understand her but she feels like an animal as this is the third
time in four years. He thinks that the whole issue is simple and there is
nothing complicated about it but she, she knows that one cannot iisolate
the child from her life" (Leg: 44). For her it appears that breeding is just
not the purpose of life. She tells him that children stifle and stunt your
personality and he dismisses her telling her that she is parroting words
out of the books. She finally decides not to have the baby and goes in
for an operation. Taking such a decision is hard for her and yet she opts
not to have it because she knows that she can give all of herself or
nothing at all to the baby but she also wants as she says "to reserve some
part of myself, my life" (Leg: 47).
Munro's "A Trip to the Coast" (DM') has a structure and tone
similar to "The Beloved Charioteer" (Dark) by Deshpande. In "My
Beloved Charioteer" (Dark) the two women are widows and while the
grandmother feels happy that her husband has died, giving her fieedom,
the young daughter feels cheated as both her father and husband are
dead. She therefore has no time for her daughter and the daughter grows
closer to the grandma. The story, "A Trip to the Coast" (DHS) too
discusses fieedom and escape but only in terms of the grand daughter,
May who feels restricted by the grandmother. Her grandma dies finally
trying to get hypnotised. Nevertheless, May cannot cherish her freedom
because she feels her grandma is the one who has won.
She sat with her legs folded under her looking out at the road
where she might walk now in any direction she liked, and the
world which lay flat and accessible and full of silence in front
of her. She sat and waited for that moment to come when she
could not wait any longer, when she would have to get up and
go into the store where it was darker than ever now on account
of the rain and where her grandmother lay fallen across the
counter dead, and what was more, victorious (DHS: 189).
Martin Collingwood. The boy later drops her and starts dating a girl
with whom he is staging the play " Pride and Prejudice". The young
disillusioned girl moons over him and she spends "ten times as many
hours thinking about Martin Collingwood- yes, pining and weeping for
him- as I ever spent with him; the idea of him tormented my mind
relentlessly and after a while, against my will" (DHS: 77). Finally at the
end of the story when she is grown up she realises that she is a grown
woman and her catastrophe is now forever buried.
in boys and girls: "a boy would think of the universe the mystery and
magnificence of it while the girl would think of washing her hair. Del is
upset as she does not think in this way and wonders if she is abnormal.
Ironically enough the article also states: "For a woman, everything is
personal, no idea is of any interest to her by itself, but must be translated
into her own experience, in works of art she always sees her own life or
her daydream" (LGW: 150). Del recognises the difference between her
"The Beggar Maid" (WDY) casts the protagonist Rose in the role of
a poor woman having to be dependent on the king. The king in this story
is Patrick Blatchford who is from a rich home. The beginning of the
story announces that he is in love with Rose. Rose's relationship with
Patrick is very similar to that of Del's in "Baptising"
(WDY).
Del could
spurn Garnet and realise that her personality was being drowned. But
Rose is unable to drop the relationship, because Patrick is too gentle, too
honest and "good and guileless". Therefore, she marries him. Later
when she reviews her marriage and her separation, she wonders if she
had entered the relationship because of vanity, greed, and economic
security. The answer to that lies in her words: "What she never said to
anybody, never confided, was that she sometimes thought it had not
been pity or greed or cowardice or vanity but something quite different,
like a vision of happiness" ( WDY:99).
she finally realises that her identity is not within these relations with
men but in her own being. "Wild Swans" (WDY)
has sexual implications
similar to what Del experiences in "Lives of Girls and Women" (LGFV).
In this bid to "carve a living space" women had for long "colluded
in their own oppression" as is seen in the case of the wife who accepts
another woman in "And What's A Son" (Gale) ;but gradually women
have become more and more conscious that they need to change. It has
been noticed that "women are not weak but oppressed and powerless,
not incapable but uninitiated, not inadequate but unacknowledged,
unrecognised and rendered helpless due to denial of opportunity,
subjugation and suppression" (ChitnisJ987: 237). The fact that a
woman is strong, adequate and an individual with an identity is
highlighted in these stories.
In the West, individualism has played a great role and in a way this
has helped women to step out of their role-models and achieve an
independent life. In Indian societies women have been greatly restricted
by the community. Women are pushed away into the inner sanctum of
the house and are taught to practise propriety and obedience. They are
taught to deny, and sacrifice instead of asserting their selves. Individual
talents, skills, capabilities were pushed backwards. Women are not
Malashri Lal feels that the essential difference between the Western
and Oriental concepts of Womanhood rests upon the interpretation of
the word, "self-actualisation". In India a woman's roles as wife, mother,
mother-in- law are modes of self-actualisation; while the west tends to
perceive self-actualisation as an individual goal. (1986: 43) Feminist
consciousness in the last decade has led to a blurring of conventions
even in India but more and more feminist thinkers argue that the
universal objectives of the women's movements are to be specially
defined within a specific sociological context and that desirable social
change has to be strategically introduced within the system. The
slowness of the process is preferable to the instant rejection often
activated by an obvious infiltration of new ideas.
The ideas that one witnesses in some of the stories dealing with
Indian life reveal that a woman once married is the man's property. The
other factor is that marriage is a bond for the purpose of procreation.
This proprietal air of man is extremely well brought out in the story
"Intrusion" (Leg). The aim is to please the man and women are whores
needed to appease men's physical desire. The total disregard of
women's need for sex and her body desires can be noted as already
pointed out in "The First Lady" (Leg), "A Valley in Shadow7'(Dark),
reader is taught to take women's texts seriously, to recognise not just the
surface of the female body but its hidden meanings" (Irvine, 1989: 14).
Women also assume the role of the desirers and this is noticed in
the scene where Rose forces Patrick to have sex with her. Rose realises
that love is a fantasy, an illusion: She had always thought this would
happen, that somebody would look at her and love her totally and
helplessly. It was a miracle. It was a mistake. It was what she had
dreamed oE it was not what she wanted. (WDF8 1).
Stories like "Dulse" and "Bardon Bus" (MOJ) also depict the
division between fact and fiction. Irvine commenting on "Dulse" states
that "the narrator uses Lydia's dilemma to describe the aesthetic tension
between creativity and experience, between living in an ivory tower and
living in the actual world". The character in Bardon Bus feels that "the
moment when you give yourself up, give yourself over, to the assault
which is guaranteed to finish off everything you've been before, a
stubborn virgin's belief, this belief in perfect mastery; any broken-down
wife could tell there is no such thing" ( M U111)
Thus, one notices that each of these stories reveal various facets of
the power that men wield. In "Intrusion" (Leg) one notices that the
newly married bride is unable to overcome the boundaries of society and
is only mutely able to share her agony with her readers. On the other
hand "First Lady" (Leg) depicts the misuse of political power and the
changes that it can wrought between a husband and a wife.
Munro's stories are more varied and endow women with more
power and independence. The two readings by the mother and daughter
depict the plurality of the readings in the story "Friend Of My Youth"
(FOY). The unsavoury nature of love and the need to be aware of one's
potential is the basis of the stories "Hold Me Fast, Don't Let Me Pass"
CHAPTER III
PROVIDENCE
the mother. At other times, the mother may be the power figure, namely
the strong dominant mother who may makeibreak the child; or in some
cases a weak, submissive, powerless mother whom the child may
sympathise witwdislike. She could also be an independent woman
asserting herself and the child may realise that she is different from
other mothers.
26 This
"Lucid Moments" (Int) is one such story that discusses the identity crisis
experienced by an ailing mother. It portrays the anxiety of the mother to
know herself and in her quest for identity she tries to connect her own
"One of her better days actually". I tell him, during our lunch
when his question comes up. "She's been talking today ..."
"Of what?"
"Her dead mother. She was asking me for her name. Isn't it
odd? Baba is pushing his food about on his plate; he seems
her aware for the need to know one's self. She, as the daughter, is also to
be blamed as she has subverted her mother's image by calling her
"Akka" (sister) instead of "Amma" (mother). She knows that her mother
is troubled as she wants to know who she is. Her mother is anxious and
grieved because she is not able to recollect her mother's name. Added to
this misery she is also troubled by her own double identity for she does
not know if she is Sumati or Girija--possibly two identities thrust on
her--one by her father and another by her husband, thereby erasing her
true inner being. This loss of identity is equated with her degenerating
body: "Since the metastasis, there seems to be almost nothing of her old
self left. The shadows that began under her eyes have captured the
whole of her face, the lower portion has caved in, her eyes have sunk
into two deep, dark wells" (Int: 72). Yet, there is a point of
identification, interestingly enough, the "bindi" that adorns an Indian
woman's forehead. This mark of tradition is seen here as foregrounding
the self.
Sujatha can now realise her mother's silence and she realises that
women are continually erased by society. She remembers the prewedding rite when the names of the fore 'fathers' are uttered but not of
the mothers or their ancestors who are just forgotten. She thus gains
identity experiencing and sharing her mother's pain and suffering. She
feels that she shares her mother's death as she had once shared her birth
with her. Dale Spender's remarks about the process of naming are valid
in this context:
" .
family tree, if you will) that has preceded us and given us the
world we live in. the given, the immediately presented, as at
birth-a given name a given word ...here we are truly contained
within the body of our mother tongue (1987: 224).
27Dale Spender states that not only males name their experiences
but also insist that those who don't share that experience use those
names. When women are endowed with the power to name then there
may arise a more "accurate classification of the world" (1989: 189-99).
significant: "And so her illness and death and the whole tension between
us ...was very important. The first story I think of as a real story was
"Peace of Utrecht". It's about the death of a mother'' (1987: 215). The
daughter's visit to her mother's house after her death reminds her -ofthe
cry of her mother which had been "shamehlly undisguised and raw and
supplicating" (DM: 198). The narrator, Helen and her sister, Maddy
had learnt to deal with these cries of helplessness by growing cunning
and cold. They took away fiom her, as Helen narrates, "our anger and
impatience and disgust, took all emotion away from our dealings with
her, you might take away meat from a prisoner to weaken him, till he
died" ( D m 199). She had demanded love from her daughters but they
had not enough reserves to draw from and had increased her sense of
isolation and imprisonment. She had, by her illness, changed into a
demanding ghoulish mother:
The mother could also act as a spur influencing and enabling the
woman to change her lifestyle. Such a change is witnessed in
Deshpande's "it Was The Nightingale" (Gale). Jayu, the protagonist,
takes a bold step to further her career as she does not want to be like her
mother. Initially she feels " dislike and contempt" for her mother
because she had "tried to live her life through her husband and
daughters". To Jayu she seems like a woman "who had made her own
hell and gloried in it" (Gale: 14). Therefore, she battles and finally gets
her own self out from such an image. She changes from the selfsacrificing and self-effacing mother into an independent woman.
Dominant/Passive Mothers
"Why a Robin" (Leg) and "It was Dark" (Dark) reveal the changing
attitude of mothers towards their girl children. She thinks that the
understanding and sympathy between the daughters and the mothers
grow. She adds that "It was Dark" reveals the "young girl's
vulnerability which no amount of knowledge of the sexual act can erase.
The young girl cannot cope with the crisis and is numbed into a state of
indifference and withdrawal" (1990: 251). To the victim the whole
trauma is associated with a dark room and there is complete blankness
within her. The mother feels as if her daughter has witnessed a solar
eclipse with naked eyes and lost her vision. She understands that she is
the person who has to bring the daughter out of this darkness and lead
her towards light. She finally manages to draw her daughter out and
make her aware of the light around her: "Sunlight poured into the
room, ... And now at last her eyes moved from her spot to a glimmering,
moving circle... They rested on that shining light for a moment, then
moved to me. She saw me" (Dark: 25).
of rape28 thinks that "the fact that the enactment of rape takes place in
private and secret places requires the author to conduct his readers into
the innermost recesses of physical space" (1993: 76). She further points
out in this context that feminist texts of rape counter narrative
determinism, in different ways: namely by making the raped woman the
subject rather than as a victim of the act; by showing strategies of
survival instead of establishing the issue around myths of chastity; by
portraying and placing the raped woman in a system of heterosexual
love and oppression through rape; by presenting the literal facts of the
act rather than weaving a mystifying atmosphere around the whole issue
We are once again made aware of the importance of names and the
significance of telling stories by Munro's "Progress of Love" (POL).
Unlike the daughter in "Lucid Moments" (Int) the daughter, Fame here
has always called her mother, 'mother' and to her the personal name that
her mother has seems strange. She also develops an identity with the
mother by becoming a part of her personality and is constantly reminded
of her: "But I had a sense of her all the time, and would be reminded of
her by the most unlikely things--an upright piano, or a tall white loaf of
bread" (POL: 9). Even though the idea seems a little exaggerated, what
is revealed here is the sense of space that the mother occupies in the
daughter's psyche. The mother's presence becomes a strong one as the
mother becomes apart of the daughter which is a feeling not felt by the
narrator's brothers:
The daughter is here aware of the mother and her body and she
feels the bond breaks when she herself later on has only two sons and no
daughters. The story of the mother's suicide becomes a link to her
mother's past. Redekop remarks that Munro7sexploration of "maternal
ancestry is intimately related to language and to the process of
storytelling" (1992: 176). She adds that the naming of the mother and
the aunt constructs the subjects of the story and the two versions of the
story that Fame hears take up two positions, namely, the mother's story
is a story about the mother herself while the aunt's story loses the
matrilineal power and is a "challenge" issued by her (1992: 176).
birth is bizarre and unbelievable. The truth of the story is not what is
important, "What mattered was Miss Kemaghan7scold emphasis as she
told this, her veiled and surely unfriendly purpose, her random ferocity"
(POL: 151). The story questions the romantic notion of mother, her
love, affection and her sacrifice for the daughter. Munro achieves this
effect cleverly by positioning a mock mother and thus, makes a mockery
her daughters and the life she had with them when she comes to visit her
father who is in hospital. She knows that her daughters, Nichola and
Judith would have discussed her and tried to establish their connections
to her: "They would have talked about me. Judith and Nichola
comparing notes, relating anecdotes; analysing, regretting, blaming,
forgiving" (MOJ: 222). She thinks that daughters being women are
closely tied up with the mother and know all about the mother. She is
reminded that at Judith's age she had been in college discussing issues
with her friends and at Nichols's age she had been a mother. She
remembers the talks she would have with her neighbourhood friend,
Ruth Boudreau:
She had felt offended by her father when he had told her that he
could not remember the days when she grew up. She realises that the
same is true when she becomes the mother. All that she can remember
are "hanging out diapers, bringing in and folding diapers.. .I was sleepy
all the time then;...wives yawning, napping, visiting, drinking coffee and
folding diapers; ..." (MOJ: 223). She realises that they had become like
cartoons and had aged by the responsibilities. The story once again
points out the need for detachment and distancing oneself in order to
survive. The mother remembers that Nichola had been tested for
leukaemia and frightened that she may lose her, she had tried to attain a
distance: "There was a care--not a withdrawal exactly but a care--not to
feel anything much. I saw how the forms of love might be maintained
with a condemned person but with the love in fact measured and
disciplined, because you have to survive" (MOJ: 230). The whole issue
is always a secret to the person who is sentenced to death. The fact of
Nichola's life had stayed with her and by this secret the mother is
empowered as she gains a wider vision of what life and death means.
This
mental
picture that
she
sees is
"releasing
one"
and
psychologically
by
shaping
the
To illustrate this fact she remarks "I was very much relieved that she
had decided against strokes, and that I would not have to be the mother,
and wash and wipe and feed her lying in bed, as aunt Dodie had had to
do with mother" (SIB: 244).
(WDY: 4). Even the way she tells Rose about the death of Rose's mother
is quite ridiculous.
father. Even before the beatings the power of Flo is displayed by the
body image: "Her legs are long, white and muscular, marked all over
with blue veins as if somebody had been drawing rivers on them with an
indelible pencil". Flo's scrubbing is seen by Rose as endowed with "an
abnormal energy, a violent disgust ..." (WDY:15). All these images flow
finally into the question of who do you think you are:
Flo in the story not only exhibits theatricality and power but also
assumes the role of a martyr. She finally manages to rouse Rose's
father's ire and Rose is vanquished by the royal beatings her father
resorts to. Rose in her new state of the injured victim feels that "She has
passed into a state of calm, in which outrage is perceived as complete
and final". In such a state she finds that her choices are clear--"She will
never speak to them, she will never look at them with anything but
loathing, she will never forgive them. She will punish them; she will
finish them" (WDY: 20). These thoughts make her forget herself and her
and offers it to Flo, thus bridging the gap between them: "'A wig' , said
Rose, 'and Flo began to laugh. Rose laughed too"'. Rose then assumes
the role of the entertainer, sticks the wig on her head and continues the
The power relations that one notices in some of the stories are a
reflection of the physical power that women notice in men and which
they intemalise in their selves. This could explain the show of violence
and power by Flo in "Royal Beatings" ( WDYJ.
29
comedy making Flo laugh so that "she rocked back and forth in her
crib" ( T D E 191). Flo is once again able to tell her stories and she tells
Rose about the removal of gall stones from her body. This bond that is
established between Rose and Flo makes Rose think later in life of
telling her what she had heard about Hat Nettleton. But, Flo has lost her
power of speech which had given her the power of exhibitor and now
"She had removed herself, and spent most of her time sitting in a comer
of her crib, looking crafty and disagreeable, not answering anybody,
though she occasionally showed her feelings by biting a nurse" (WDY:
24). Redekop remarks that "the dialogue of stories that move back and
forth between Flo and Rose is a structural acting out of this strange face
to face experience of fool and nonfool, infant and mother (1992: 121).
meaning of shelter, and laboured to manage it" (FDY: 145). She finally
gives up Anna because she learns that her independence cannot provide
the stability that a child needs:
She wanted to take Anna with her, set them up again in some
temporary shelter. It was just as Patrick said. She wanted to
come home to Anna, to fill her life with Anna. She didn't
think Anna would choose that life. Poor, picturesque, gypsing
childhoods are not much favoured by children, though they
will claim to value them, for all sorts of reasons, later on
(WDE 155).
Anna therefore is sent to live with her father, Patrick and his wife,
Elizabeth. Rose finally sees a photo of Anna where she looks demure
and satisfied.
stages of the disease in the story "The Ottawa Valley" (SIB) and the
mother who is dead due to the affliction in "The Peace of Utrecht"
(DHS) is once again revived here. The daughter is able to capture the
qualities of the mother that she had forgotten. She remembers the
"liveliness of face and voice", "the casual humour she had, not ironic
but merry, the lightness and impatience and confidence?" and her
"matter-of-fact reply" (FOE 4). The mother in the dream is not afflicted
by the disease and the daughter feels relieved and happy to see her like
that. She finally realises from the dream that her mother had exhibited
"options and powers
"
mother thus turns into a ghost figure: "She changes the bitter lump of
love I have carried all this time into a phantom---something useless and
uncalled for, like a phantom pregnancy" (FOE 26). The story brings out
the idea of failure and the inability of the daughter's to know the mother
completely. This guilt30 of the daughter to represent the mother becomes
jug at her daughter, Robin. The violence begins when Trudy discovers
that the bead necklace given to her by her mother-in-law and which she
had forbidden Robin to wear, had been given by Robin to a friend. Her
questions directed at Robin are answered by silence, and in a fit of rage
she hurls the jug. But fortunately the jug falls on the rug. Robin had
given the necklace to her friend and though Robin displays a frightened
look she is according to Tmdy, "stubborn, calculating, disdainful"
to be reconciled to the loss of the necklace. The vision she has also
reveals to her the importance of furthering oneself and placing oneself in
the role of a spectator:
She sees her young self looking in the window at the old
woman playing the piano. The dim room, with its oversize
beams and fireplace and the lonely leather chairs. The
clattering, faltering, persistent piano music. Trudy remembers
that so clearly and it seems she stood outside her own body,
which ached then from the punishing pleasures of love. She
stood outside her own happiness in atide of sadness. And the
opposite thing happened the morning Dan left. Then she stood
outside her own unhappiness in a tide of what seemed
unreasonably like love. But it was the same thing, really,
when you got outside. What are those times that stand out,
clear patches in your life--what do they have to do with it?
They aren't exactly promises. Breathing spaces (POL: 273).
smoke, drink and drive a car by the time he is twelve. The mother here
has a name for everyone in town. She also knows a lot of poetry and at
times "She looks out the window and says a bit of poetry and they h o w
who has gone by" (POL: 183). Joan, the daughter narrator later in life
realises that one needs to act in order to hide the things one sees "in
their temporary separateness, all connected underneath in such a
troubling, satisfying, necessary, indescribable way" (POL: 208). Finally
Joan realises that their mother had taught them to have a "delicate,
special regard for themselves" and because of this gift of hers she and
her brother, Morris had been able to get what they wanted. Joan quotes
These lines indicate to Joan that power and beauty are all of no use
and every thing one day fmds its plaee. This global vision is what a
daughter can learn fiom the mother.
31
towards her father. The mother tries to regain her gentility but the
daughter realises that trying to be a lady is enough. To be accepted one
has to possess status too. This realisation makes her hate her mother:
(rn:
5).
Magdalene Redekop in her study of the image of mothers feels that
in the story "Walker Brothers Cowboy" ( D mthe maternal action to be
self-sufficient needs the body of the daughter. She thinks that the father
and mother both give something to the daughter and the only
"difference is that while the mother sews a dress for her, the father
shows her, by example, how to construct a mask. Both parents ensure,
however, that the daughter's idea of reproduction will be one based on
thrift" (1992:38). What is apparent is that the daughter learns from
observing and is aware of the double life that the father leads. The
daughter thus, realises the reality and the illusion that can exist together
in life.
(DHS: 32). Mary is no goddess but takes the role of the goddess by
making the daughter feel wicked and sinful: "every time she said
Mother I felt chilled, and a kind of wretchedness and shame spread
through me as it did at the name of Jesus" (DHS: 33). The daughter is
aware that "This Mother that my own real, warm-necked, irascible and
comforting human mother set up between us was an everlastingly
wounded phantom, sorrowing like Him over all the wickedness I did not
yet know I would commit" ( D M :33). The daughter finds that the
mother has changed from a story teller and an entertainer into a child
whimpering and crying for Mary's attention. The father once again dons
the role of a quester and a hunter, (who has changed from a roving
salesman in "Walker Brothers Cowboy" (DHS) into a trapper in this
story). Another similarity is that once again the daughter is allowed into
the father's circle and is empowered by his secrets. Thus the daughter at
the conclusion of the story is made aware that:
Like the children in fairy stories who have seen their parents
make pacts with terrifying strangers, who have discovered that
our fears are based on nothing but the truth, but who come
back fresh from marvellous escapes and take up their knives
and forks, with humility and good manners, prepared to live
Munro's story, "Boys and Girls" (DHS) also depicts the theme of
gender differences, the identification with the father and the final shift
of the daughter from the father to mother. The mother as depicted by
many of Munro's stories is a story teller. The daughter is however
drawn to the father even though he hardly shares his thoughts with her.
She works for him willingly and is proud to be a part of his world as she
feels his authority. She is aware of the number of duties and chores that
her mother handles hanging out the wash, cooking , making jams and
jellies, etc., but the daughter feels that "work in house was endless,
dreary, and peculiarly depressing; work done out of doors and in my
father's service was ritualistically important" (DHS:
117). Though the
daughter knows that her mother loves her, she feels she cannot trust her.
She knows that she loved her yet she was also her enemy. She thought
that she was always plotting against her: "She was plotting now to get
me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it (because she
knew I hated it) and keep me from working for my father. It seemed to
me she would do this simply out of perversity, and to try her power"
(DHS: 118). She never thinks that her mother may have been lonely or
jealous of her. Slowly as she grows up it dawns on her that there is a
change in the perception of what a girl is:
She learns that "girls don't slam doors", that "girls keep their knees
together when they sit down" (DHS:118) and that girls can't ask some
questions. Finally when she allows a horse to escape and her father
dismisses her gesture by the words, "She's only a girl", she cannot
protest as she thinks maybe that it is the truth. This action of hers
bridges the gap between the mother and daughter as it does in
Deshpande's "Why a Robin" (Leg).
facts of existence and how they can affect relationships are very well
illustrated by this story.
finds a partner, and things work out well. While returning home she
finds that she had not only been to the dance, but walked home with a
boy had also been kissed by her. She realises that "life is once again
possible" (DHS: 160). Close to her home she sees her mother tiredly
waiting for her return and she realises how much the whole event had
meant to her mother. She herself may never, in her own life, have a
chance like the one the daughter has and to her this may have been a
dream, that the daughter had hlfilled:
She was just sitting and waiting for me to come home and tell
her everything that had happened. And I would not do it, I
is a failure as he could not even struggle with death. He had left behind
him incomplete duties, responsibilities and empty tears. Therefore she
remarks:
Her perceptions of her father change when she notices the letters in
his briefcase and learns of the help he had tried to activate to help her.
This reconciles her to him. The story illuminates the distance between
daughter and mother but the focus shifts to the father and the reaction of
the daughter to the father's image.
daughter and her maternal ancestors. One confronts the mother who is
proud and thinks highly of herself as witnessed later in "Princess Ida".
The Mother in "Connection" (MOJ) thinks very highly of her family:
him. Her mother believed that "the grandfather had been a student at
Oxford and had lost all his money7' (MOJ: 7). This mother who is taken
up by her being from gentility is not the only picture presented to the
reader. The mother is also a businesswoman, a trader and dealer as
revealed in the subsequent story, "The Stone in The Field" (MOJ). The
mother here pities her husband's sisters and thinks that they could
change their lives. To her life is full of possibility and change. It is the
image of this mother that is portrayed to us more fully in the story
"Princess Ida" ( L O .
exhibit in order to promote her sales. She also takes courses such as
"Great Thinkers of History" ( L G F 662)and writes letters to newspapers.
Though Del is distanced;; from her mother, she finds that her mother
has lot of stories to tell her- stories of the past. She knew that her mother
had not left anything behind: "Inside that self we knew, which might at
times appear blurred a bit, or side-tracked, she kept her younger
selves...; scenes from the past were liable to pop up any time, ...against
the cluttered fabric of the present" ( L G K 62). On the day, she visits
Del's school, Del is ashamed because: "She was so different, that was
all, so brisk and hopeful and guileless in her maroon hat, making little
jokes, thinking herself a success". Del thinks that others pity and
sympathise with her because she has such a strange mother. Del could
not bear "the tone of her voice, the reckless, hunying way she moved,
her lively absurd gestures..., and most of all her innocence, her way'of
not knowing when people were laughing, of thinking she could get away
with this". This had caused her to hate. She, however, knows the fact
that she herself is not very different fiom her mother but tries to conceal
it (LGW 68).
33 Lorna
(LGV: 146). She had learned from her mother the need for self-respect.
Initially she had rejected her mother's views but later in life she takes
her advice. Her own self-reflective words illustrate this point:
It is this vision that one notices when the daughter becomes the
observer and the story teller but the past can also help to overcome guilt,
and achieve a wider view of the society and the connection between
things as witnessed in stories such as "Oh, What Avails" (POL) and "It
Was The Nightingale" (Gale). This recognition and relevance of life
finally leads to mothers who are able to move from being mothers into
whole women as illustrated by the growth of the characters--Rose
VOICES
Connection. That was what it was all about. The
cousins were a show in themselves, but they also
provided a connection. A connection with the real,
and prodigal, and dangerous world
-- MOJ (6).
Family Ties
The two sections of the story "Chaddeleys and Flemings" (MOJ)
present the connections existing between women. The image of women
is portrayed in Connection very vividly when the narrator describes her
aunts. She narrates that the term Old Maids could not be used as "it
would not cover them". Their body contours were richer and they had to
be called Maiden Ladies for:
This picture portrays the sexual apect as well as the power of the
female body. The story deals with the fact that women unmarried and
living their own lives are not to be pitied but are to be appraised for the
free existence that they lead. These aunts are not the ordinary old
maidens restricted by society. On the other hand, they are women who
talk not only explicitly about sex but also indulge in unladylike
activities such as smoking. They discussed the shopkeepers in
Dalgleish, they went berry picking, drank coffee, fished, dressed up in
odd clothes and took pictures of themselves, and made cakes (MOJ : 4).
The narrator recalls that the cousins were "audience and performers" for
each other
The narrator also learns from the aunts' and her mother's
discussions about the maternal ancestry. Later in life she realises that
they belonged to a decent working class background. She speculates on
this knowledge and thinks that if she had known this earlier she would
be shocked and credulous about it. Or she would have been triumphant
if she had learnt of it at a time when she was trying to strip away all
illusion and false notions. But at the time when she gathered this
information she was past caring ( M U 1 10).
She becomes aware when Cousin Iris is going to visit her that she
wants to show off to Richard, her husband, the relation who is decently
educated, well spoken, and moderately well-bred (MQJ 11). She
wanted the visit to go well:
Nothing fazed her; she was right. Nothing deflected her from
the stories of herself; the amount of time she could spend time
not talking was limited.. .How many conversations she must
have ridden through like this--laughing, insisting, rambling,
recollecting. I wondered if this evening was something she
would describe as fun. She would describe it. The house, the
rugs, the dishes, the signs of money. It might not matter to her
fit of anger she throws a Pyrex plate at him. The plate misses him but
the pie in the plate catches him on his face and she is reminded of the
show, "I Love Lucy". At that point she realises that she had been
harbouring illusions and what is thought to be funny in drama is
shocking in reality. One cannot expect to cover up things and try to
change the pattern of life. She realises that life is like a dream and that it
is transformed "by these voices, by these presences, by their high spirits
and grand esteem, for themselves and each other (MOJ: 18).
people including the n m t o r ' s mother. The description varies here very
much when one compares it to the maternal aunts. The image here is
that of leanness, tallness, plainness, paleness, closeness as opposed to
the roundness, the voluptuousness, the colourfulness, and the openness
of the maternal aunts. While the maternal aunts had used words and
performances to control and manipulate the world, the paternal aunts are
forever immersed in work. To them, work is something that must go on
and that which is never ending. The narrator understands from these
connections that one can never make up stories because as she says,
Later when the narrator recalls her mother's life and the relationship that
existed between her parents she realises the importance of a married life
where the husband and wife realise the importance of each other's
actions: "People doing something that seems to them natural and
necessary. At least, one of them is doing what seems natural and
necessary, and the other believe that the important thing is for that
person to be free, to go ahead" (POL: 30). This revelation makes her
aware of the "moments of kindness and reconciliation" that one must
have:
in this the myth is reverted by the rehge being a waste-land. The picture
of the king in their parlour promises to her the riches that the future
holds for her. "That seemed a promise to Violet; it was connected with
her future, her own life, in a way she couldn't explain or think abouty'
(POL: 209). This reference to a king and a rich future is once again
shaped in a different way in the narration as Violet does not get married
to the prince of her dreams, Trevor. The myth is structured into several
frameworks and one finds that the father is named King Billy Thomas
and there is also a horse called King Billy. The derivation of the title
'King Billy' is cloaked in mystery and is left without an explanation.
Munro by portraying the father as a red head and by highlighting the
fact of Aunt Ivie's long maidenhood and subsequent marriage with the
red head manages to clothe the story in a layer of mystery and credulity.
Aunt Ivie works outside and like Cinderella, Violet is left to take care of
the house and manage the sisters.
Violet later has changes in her life. Her move away from home for
further education changes not only Violet but also her relationship with
the family. She finds that she has lost power over them and can no
longer control them. Also the younger sisters share a secret between
them which finally changes the course of her life. The other change that
happens is in the love that develops between Trevor, a minister and
Violet. Trevor's style of life gives her a vision of a different world
besides her own. The engagement does not take place as Trevor learns
of the anonymous threatening notes written to King Billy by Violet's
sister, Dawn Rose. He thinks that as he was a minister it was not right
for him to marry a girl from a family, where lunacy may prevail. The
door to her future gets closed by this innocent yet evil action of her
sister. She remains unmarried and comes back home. Her sisters,
however, leave home, marry and settle while she gets stuck in the same
place. The myth of Cinderella thus reverses and instead of gaining
riches Violet is back at her place near the hearth.
Thus, one finds that Violet is not broken down by the events in her
life but is able to revive herself and emerge not only as a successful
professional but as also a protector of her family. The fairy tale ending
is changed to depict the freedom and determined spirit of the heroine.
him, had disgraced him somehow from the time she was born and would
disgrace him still more thoroughly in the future" (WDE 47). The gender
expectations are pointed out by Munro in this context. To him Flo is the
illustration of what a woman is:
Flo was his idea of what a woman ought to be. Rose knew
that, and indeed he often said it. A woman ought to be
energetic, practical, clever at making and saving; she ought to
be shrewd, good at bargaining and bossing and seeing through
people's pretensions. At the same time she should be naive
intellectually, childlike, contemptuous of maps and long
words and anything in books, full, of charming jumbled
notions, superstitions, traditional beliefs (WDY:
47).
Thus, Rose realises that being female was a mistake. She also
realises that she had all the bad qualities that her father felt a woman
should not have. ~hi;?sthat her father had submerged in himself had
n
her.
(LGW)in the form of Aunt Elspeth and Aunt Grace. They have inherited
the characteristics of hard work as well as playing jokes and telling
stories. These aunts change colours when they are in Del's house. They
would become "sulky, sly, elderly, eager" when they were in Del's
house. Del notices that the relationship between her mother and her
aunts take different twists. They are shocked by Addie's (Del's mother)
"outrageousness", and her "directness". While Addie talked in straight
terms, the aunts talk had many layers to it. They recognised Addie's
ability but they disliked the way she displayed it:
The two aunts as they go older appear to Del like two constructed
pieces and appear quite inhuman as they are removed from men who
would have admired and given them life. From her uncle Craig, Del
inherits the tradition of chronicling the lives and being a writer.
"The Cruelty Game" ( k t ) and "And Then" (Int) are stories that
exhibit the relationship between children and their grandparents and
their own parents. Both the stories once again rake up a number of
questions pertaining to the power and the hierarchical structure existent
in Indian families. A widow, Aunt Pramila along with her daughter,
Sharu comes to live in her in-laws house after the death of her husband
in the story "The Cruelty Game" (Int). The story centres around two
happenings, namely the treatment that Aunt Pramila receives from the
other members in the house and the treatment meted out to the young
girl, Sharu by the other children in the house. The socialisation of the
woman is seen in the way Aunt Pramila is alienated and distanced from
all others. The narrator observes, "It was strange how all the women had
become friends since Pramila auntie came home. Prarnila auntie didn't
seem to mind that they rarely spoke to her. Her work done, she went to
her room and stayed there". Her powerless situation is revealed when
the narrator comments that "She never spoke even when she saw us
tormenting Sharu; she just looked at us" (Int: 125). The other children in
the house, too, torment the young Sharu by making her a butt and
tricking her. Their playfulness goes to the extent of making her jump
into a pit and causing physical harm to her. The day Sharu has her
birthday, all the children in the house gather for a simple party but this
is spoilt by not only the children's cruel pranks but by the abuses heaped
old woman and she thinks that she is being humiliated, exposed and
shamed by the request of Shaku for a place to stay (Int: 154). Her
"smug, narrow and self-righteous" attitude is reflected even by her son,
Vishwa who approves of her decision. His words reflect the attitude of
what society expects from a woman:
"I'm glad you think that way, Amrna. I didn't want to say
anything yesterday--I saw her speaking to you--but I didn't
like the way she forced herself in. I know she's Anju's fiiend,
but she's a woman who's left her husband. We don't know
why ...." (Int: 156).
Sibling Relationships
Munro's "Visitors" (MQJ) portrays a different sort of connection, a
sort of mysterious strain that exists between the brothers, Wilfred and
Albert and the sisters, Grace and Vera. Mildred, the narrator and the
wife of Wilfred comments that "Brothers and sisters were a mystery to
her. There were Grace and Vera, speaking like two mouths out of the
same head, and Wilfred and Albert without a thread of connection
between them" ( M U212). The story at one level portrays the reunion
of two brothers but at another level it displays the stories that people
weave and how the stories link up some hidden truths. Mildred becomes
story that portrays the intricate bond that exists between sisters. One is
reminded of the fairy tales with the pattern of a good sister and a bad
sister. Et and Char cannot be thrust into these frameworks of a good
sister and a bad sister and yet the story points at two different
representations. One finds that while Char takes on the role of being a
lady of society, Et is the dressmaker weaving, patterning, and designing
clothes to make her sister the best dressed woman in society. Char is
always the cold, distanced actress whom no one can approach. She is
bent on grabbing attention. This is illustrated by her trying to kill
herself, by drinking blue ink when she hears that her lover, Blaikie
Noble marries a lady ventriloquist. To Et, her sister is a woman who has
the qualities of a legend and she felt that this personality contradicted
because Char and her ethereal beauty did not seem to be able to exist in
the reality of the world. Discussing the story, Carrington feels that Et is
the controller, the voyeur and Char is the controlled. She mentions that
Et controls Char by exposing her to public criticism. The manner in
which she dresses Char who is not just her sister but also the wife of a
school teacher motivates the town people to view her with hostility. The
story also falls upon the myth of Arthur and Guinevere and Arthur and
Char are seen as representations of these characters while Blaikie is
symbolised as Lancelot. E. D. Blodgett, too in his study of the story sees
Et as a manipu1ato1-35, and notes all Et's remarks however offhand are
35Martin, however, specifies a different outlook. He thinks that Et
alters and makes do and uses her dress making instincts to exist. He
made to fit into a design. The names of the characters and the town they
live in all signify a certain meaninglessness. The town is called Mock
Hill and it does seem as the story proceeds that Et is mocking Char for
her beauty. The title of Arthur links the teacher with the legendary
figure and in the story Arthur is the school teacher, the man who instead
of being magnificent and splendid looks like a fool. His adoration of
Char changes Char into a mysterious person and Et wishes to tell him of
her suicide attempt, but not wanting him to feel mocked, she does not do
so. Char, the word signifies something burnt and one feels that Char is
burnt and only symbolises a ghostly figure. Et's name in Latin signifies
the conjunction 'and'. One does find that the story has to be linked with
Et and cannot stand on its own. As pointed out by Blodgett, the story
reminds one of c'Mwm"s own preoccupation with the legendary
dwelling in the real, investing the real with qualities that make it
timeless. This again removes fiom the story a sense of time's urgency,
permitting the apparently real to reflect upon legend in both earnest and
game" (1988: 79).
further adds that while dressmaker, Char is the wearer of the dresses.
Therefore Et does not have to make do with that of Char's. He states,
"The disdainful, statuesque Char gets everything new and served up to
her on a 'plate-everything except happiness. Et makes her own things,
and achieves her own happiness, in spite of her handicaps" (1987: 120).
of (SIB: 214).
Eileen realises by the attitude of her sister that June has lost the
sense of values and has allowed herself to be changed. She has the
understanding that people die; they suffer, they die". Incidents such ass
illness and accidents have to be "respected, not explained". Just making
a show by "using words', she thought was shameful (SIB: 221). Finally
when June discusses her son's death with Eileen, Eileen has a
revelation:
In the mirror over the dresser Eileen could see her sister's
face, the downward profile, which was waiting, perhaps
embarrassed, now that this offering had been made. Also her
Friends
The slow development of friendship between Helen, the narrator
.
and Myra is the central idea of "The Day of The Butterfly" (DmMyra
is in the beginning the target of taunts and jeers by the school girls for in
the school she usually spends her time taking care of her younger
brother. One day, Helen on her way to school, notices Myra and her
brother walking ahead. Helen observes that Myra is glancing back and
feeling important she calls out to her and walks with her to school. From
that day there develops between them a silent understanding. Later,
Myra develops leukaemia and is admitted into hospital. Soon in school
Myra becomes "fashionable" because the girls think that she is fieed
from all the conditions imposed on them by school and life. When Helen
visits Myra in hospital, Myra offers her a small purse as a gift, but Helen
does not wish to take it as she thinks that Myra has lost her importance
for the present.
"Mrs Cross and Mrs Kidd" (MOJ) discusses the differences that
exist in individual lives even though two people may have remained
linked as friends all through life. The first part of the story stresses the
different lives that the two women have led. The narrator comments that
though younger people would think that their being close friends for a
long period of time, they may have everything in common. Yet the two
old women know that their lives are separate and this is illustrated by
the number of things that separates them (MOJ: 161). Martin in Paradox
and Parallels states "The differences seemed total--social, religious,
intellectual, in the way they spoke, in the games they played, and in
almost every conceivable aspect of life, even progressiveness"
(1979:150). Their stay at Hilltop Home brings them together but even
here their lives twist and separate. Mrs Cross takes over Jack, hoping to
control and use her power over him while Mrs. Kidd becomes friendly
with Charlotte who is willing to be mastered by Mrs. Kidd. The two old
women do not have any disagreements but they only resort to spending
less time together. The story reveals the different friendships both
women go through and how finally they are once again united. As
Martin comments, "The old ladies heal the slight breach between them,
and their second coming together reinforces the quite unsardonic irony
that there can be real affection even in old age, when the basis for it is
mutual need and loneiiness" (1987:150). The sisterly affection that
exists between the two women empowers them and enables them to
overcome their differences. Martin's concluding comments about this
story are valid in this context:
Mr. Cyderman's interest in her and tells MaryBeth about the growing
sexual intimacy between them. When they meet years later, Jesse is
reminded of her lies and her relationship with Mr. Cydeman. She then
realises as she leaves MaryBeth that there are changes as one grows up
from fifteen to seventeen and seventeen to nineteen. She thinks of
Marybeth and her growing sweeter and fatter, while she visualises the
Crydermans fixed in their life while she herself would be "shedding
dreams and lies and vows and errors". But she at that stage of life does
not realise that: "I didn't see that I was the same one, embracing,
repudiating. I thought I could turn myself inside out, over and over
again, and tumble through the world scot-fiee" (POL: 188).
adolescence, their youth and their marriages. Through Jocelyn she meets
Clifford and the final act of lovemaking with Clifford along with
Jocelyn reveals to her the true nature of her relationship with them.
The friendship of Del and Naomi in LGW is very much like the
friendship between Rose and Jocelyn in WDY. Del realises that having a
fiiend curbs one's freedom but it also extends and resonates life. They
did many things together in school but later they change paths. Del goes
on to higher studies while Naorni moves into the field of secretarial
practice. Another such friendship between two women is that of Del's
mother, Addie and Fern Dogherty. They were friends, in spite of
differences .
for the life one has. This aspect about thankfulness is finally stressed in
the conclusion of the story when she sees Jeanette and the neighbour
copulating: "Strength is necessary, as well as something like gratitude, if
you are going to turn into a lady peeping Tom at the end of your life"
(SIB: 174).
confusion" and the presence of her violent father, forced the friends to
meet in the cold at a store on the highway. The store was managed by
Teresa who was married to Reuel, the bus driver. Anita and Margot
generally discussed Reuel and his looks. Margot having a father who
was violent and having noticed the family tensions had a great contempt
for men: "Margot called lovemaking "carrying on7'. .But it had occurred
to Anita that this very scorn of Margot's, her sullenness and disdain,
might be a thing that men could find attractive in a way that she herself
was not" (FOK 251). They also discussed and experienced many
(FOE 253). They also shared their ambitions and family; and also hid
' ~ n i t ahad a feeling that her mother was angry at her not only
because she'd been friends with Margot, a girl who had disgraced
herself, but for another reason as well. She had the feeling that her
mother was seeing the same thing that she herself could see--Anita unfit,
passed over, disregarded, not just by Margot but by life. Didn't her
mother feel an angry disappointment that Anita was not the one chosen,
the one enfolded by drama and turned into a woman and swept out on
such a surge of life? She would never admit that. And Anita could not
admit that she felt a great failure. She was a child, a know-nothing,
betrayed by Margot, who had turned out to know a lo&RX 262).
Margot had managed to get hold of a house but this was because
she had a controlling power over Reuel. She had seen him with another
woman and had threatened him with exposure of the affair which he
thought had been a secretive one. Anita hearing this secret of her
gaining the house has her own conclusions about Margot:
Anita had herself divorced as she had the feeling one evening at a
restaurant that she cared more for a man she saw in the restaurant than
for her husband and decided that she can'tlive in such a marriage. This
Others
Munro's "The Office"
between the writer and the man who rents the place. The story has
intertextual relationships with Woolf s idea of A Room Of One's Own.
Just as Woolf states the problem of a woman being unable to have some
time and space for her to write, the story portrays the anxiety of a young
woman writer to find a space for herself. The relationship that develops
between the landlord and the writer reveals to her the impossibility of
trying to be serious. The landlord's help and his insistence on trying to
meet the writer reflects the society's attitude towards women who wish
to be isolated and alienated from others. Any such pattern is seen by
society as a deviance from the normal. Munro commenting on this story
feels:
The fact that the writer is young, passive and docile made her the
victim of the man's patronising behaviour. His behaviour is summed up
by Munro when she discusses the writing of the story and the
autobiographical nature of the episode:
Her talk with Gladys about appearances makes her realise that "there are
different ways women have of talking about their looks. Some women
make it clear that what they do to keep themselves up is for the sake of
sex, for men'. Others like Gladys think of it as a difficult job that they
are proud of (MOJ: 63). Marjorie's and Lily's discussion about Gladys
and Herb Abbott, "sprang from their belief that single people ought to
be teased and embarrassed whenever possible,..." (MIOJ: 64). Their
curiosity was founded wondering how he lived his life, why he did not
have a wife, children and a home. As the narrator unravels all these inter
personal relationships she recalls that at that time there had been no talk
Doma sights her and she drops the bag. Cora takes the bag to Flo and
she does this not to make trouble for her but to enjoy herself: "She
enjoyed her importance and respectability and the pleasure of grown-up
exchange" (WDY:37). Flo is shocked by Rose's action and asks her if
she was in love with Cora. Rose does not think of it in that way as she
feels that love is associated with "movie endings, kissing and getting
married. Her feelings were at the moment shocked and exposed, and
already, though she didn't know it, starting to wither and curl up at the
edges"
the earlier sections. "A Liberated Woman" (Leg) attempts to express the
notion of liberation and the depths such a term can hide. It is an ironical
absurdity that two people so much in love should be kept apart because
of something so trivial as caste" (Leg: 23). Now twelve years later when
she meets this friend, she discusses with him her marriage and how it
has fallen apart. The friend is astonished to hear that her husband is
sadistic and abuses her. He wonders why she is still married to him, in
spite of the fact that she is a doctor. After she leaves him, he thinks of
her and is astonished:
Cc
I was idly turning over the pages, and suddenly, there she was,
her cool, poised face staring back at me almost arrogantly. It
CHAPTER V
SUMMIMG UP :
THE PHOTOG
Del in LGW too makes this point when she writes about the
photographer in her story:
People saw that in his pictures they had aged twenty or thirty
years. Middle aged people saw in their own features the
terrible, growing, inescapable likeness of their dead parents;
young fresh girls and men showed what gaunt or dulled or
stupid
faces
they
would
have
when
they
were
fifty (205).
Thus what one does notice in the work of these two short story
writers is the depiction of being able to look at the oddity of life and
their ability to comment on the life of the people. This is also the power
of the camera. Susan Sontag remarks that the camera has the power to
catch so-called normal people in such a way as to make them look
abnormal. "The photographer chooses oddity, chases it, frames it,
develops it, titles it ..." (1977: 131). The photographer is able to reveal
the emotions and the feelings of the personality by a carehl and artisic
use of the camera. Munro and Deshpande, too, in their works display
such artistic abilities.
further emphasises "I don't see that people develop and arrive
somewhere. I just see people living in flashes. From time to time. And
this is something you do become aware of as you go into middle
age....Mostly in my stories I like to look at what people don't
understand" (Interview, Hancock, 89-90).
will make her not splendid, but grotesque" (186). Thus, the girl realises
that she has to wait and instead of being courageous, learn to be
beautiful. The full human powers are illusory and not as she expects it to
be. She is forced to accept this definition or will have to compromise
and Munro feels that this is where women have an advantage:
Feminine Identity:
Questioning women's subjectivity and the idea of identity one
finds that there are a number of factors that make their impact on this
subject. The woman heroine in these stories does not undergo struggle
but realises that there are factors that she has to consider in order to
develop herself. She does finally regain her self by accepting the
connections of life and accepting life in many of the stories instead of
trying to be a mythical, heroic character.
agree upon it. On the other hand, Indians regard the family as a strong
bond and as an upholder of cultural values and tradition. This makes it
difficult for any dissolution of marriage, once it is solemnized according
to traditional rites and rituals. Therefore, many women also reject
feminisim which they feel promotes individualistic attitude, egoism,
selfishness, sexual liberty and above all a destroyer of the family.
The number of women writing in India not only in English but also
in regional languages is a revelation of the changing phase of Indian
womanhood. Most of the writing is fundamentally a quest, within the
Indian context to know the true identity of women. The subjection and
oppression that women face is the major theme of women's writing and
yet these works differ as the perception of women's problems is based
associated with shame, betrayal, and exposure". Ross also points out
that in her later books, "the idea of a hidden identity appears as a
fascination with the theme of adultery" and the "double life it creates,
especially for a married wife and mother who is expected to live her life
for other people. Instead she can be living this secret, exploratory life"
(1990: 24). One notices such stories in her later collections, namely,
MQJ and FOX
Feminine identity one notices has created the myth of the 'super
woman'. Women are faced with the uphill tasks of standing upto men's
standards. They "face the nearly impossible task of breaking through the
glass ceiling of invisible barriers to achieve like men, while
simultaneously curbing the self to fit into the traditional glass slipper
that promises blissful relationship". It is such a crisis that has led to the
fact that women forget their own inner selves. Therefore it is difficult
for them to draw on any resources. Moreover even, "cultural myths or
images offer little guidance on how to be strong, or on how to be
authentic in relationships, or on how to combine self-development with
intimacy" (Jack, 1991: 26-27). This is very true in Indian society where
one finds that stories from the epics are used to inspire women. A girl
child is always told to emulate characters such as Sita and Savitri, even
though many stories in the epics feature strong, rebellious women such
as Draupadi. Thus, instead of being a supporting structure, culture has
prepared and taught women to immerse themselves in self sacrifice. To
create a strong self one needs to explore differences and stick firmly to
one's own point of view. They must understand that it is not necessary
to abdicate their own perspectives and values. Women have through the
process of accommodating to cultural standards and practices, absorbed
the "male practice of discounting femininity itself--its knowledge, its
perspectives, its values" (Jack, 1991: 33).
creates not emanicipated but women who lose their identities. It has
been drilled into women's minds that the traditional route offers a safe
and secure future. But as a girl matures and adopts such a life-stye, she
notices that there is a "reduction of confidence, of possibilities" and of
her own true self (Jack, 1991: 44). When women try to fit themselves
into the ideas and notions of others, they realise that they deny their own
needs which causes dis-satisfaction and dis-iilusionment. No wonder
many women undergo traumatic, agonised lives not knowing how to get
out of it. Such instances are noticed in stories such as "My Beloved
Charioteer" (Dark), "Intrusion" (Leg) Bardon Bus (MQJ) and "A Man
and A Woman" (Gale).
come into being through communication with others. One cannot heal
the self in isolation. Since "the individual is in the deepest sense
relational, and because women's vulnerability to depression lies in the
quality of their relationships, it is the self-in-relation that begs for
healing" (Jack, 199 1: 20 5).
(Dark),
"Chaddeleys
"Connections" (MUJ).
and
Flemings"
(MOJ), and
The questions that arise at this point are: How can woman realise
herself? Where can she locate her self? What is one to do with the roles
that she carries. Woman thinks of freeing herself but it is difficult,
because even when holding a career, she still dons the role of nurturer,
provider. Even when she is employed at the so-called professional level,
if she belongs to one of the occupations traditionally held by women
such as teaching or nursing she "replicates the selflessness of
1989: 234).
Catherine Sheldrick Ross talking about SIB says that the stories
deal with urban life, "adult experience, the complications of marriage,
and the barriers to communication between men and women, old and
young". This statement is true of Munro's other collections, too. She
which she lives. At the same time, the narrative is also able to construct
her as part of that world. Within this set of sequence stories, the plot and
the subplot lose contexts as the narrative is arranged in such a way that
the traditional hierarchy of value is displaced. Del, does form the centre
of conflict in all the stories and yet the presentation of the stories occurs
This nationalist colour to what is really a common trend-glorifying women who fulfil their wife and mother roles with
exceptional ardour--placed an enormous burden on the women
who came within its defining scope. It was the women, their
commitment, their purity, their sacrifice, who were to ensure
the moral, even spiritual power of the nation and hold it
together. But even as we point this, we must not forget that
this phase also made for a positive evaluation of femininity
that did not allow for a limited growth. And no parallel
phenomenon exists in the West (1980: 26).
Mother-Daughter Relationships:
This consciousness of motherhood and colonialism is replaced by
another ideology in the post-colonial context, namely, the mother-child
relationship. Women experience pregnancy as a splitting of their selves.
In other words, it is a "separation and coexistence of the self and of an
other, of nature and consciousness, of physiology and speech". This
identity crisis is boosted in an institutional, socialised manner indicating
to women that motherhood is the essence of womenhood. The fantasy
developes to indicate that the mother and child are one and there is no
existence of the self. The mother is asked to forget herself by being
responsible towards the child. There is an unconscious association of
women to the birth of children. A woman, unable to bear children is
viewed with sympathy and pity, especially so in Indian society. Such a
the male world. This leads to the development of women who are selfeffacing, self-sacrificing and highly accommodative.
Social and cultural values create a paradox in which the motherchild relationship is intensified at the same time it is rendered impotent.
A mother exerts a powerful influence on the development of her child as
an individual while she is relegated to a powerless position in society.
She passes along the culture's devaluation of the feminine to her
daughter. Thus, weakness, submissiveness, power-lessness, not only
become associated with females, it also passes as essential trades fkom
mothers to daughters. Daughters thus, cannot overcome this inheritance
which disables and curbs them.
also get entrapped. One way out of such a predicament is for women to
sustain relationships and to draw from it, thereby empowering
themselves.
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