Reviews, Vol I, Issue IV
The novel effectively deconstructs the trendy
cosmopolitan perception about love marriages being an egalitarian relationship
between men and women. It is generally acceptable by a section of the so called
educated and financially well-off people in our contemporary times that love
marriages are a symbol of being progressive and modern. On the contrary love as
an emotion is equally guided by the repressive and gender insensitive nature of
our society. Though, it is equally significant to define that a love
relationship is the first democratic step by a person in our society when it
transgresses the boundaries of caste, class, religion, heteronormativity and
ethnicity in our society.
The protagonist in the novel gets struck by
this revelation that even though she had asserted her right to choose a
partner, but she has fallen back into another institution of oppression by
consummating her love bond into the Hindu marriage fold. The codes and norms
she is obliged to follow are not just repressive, but are ways to discipline
her back into a symbol of a "good woman". It is not just the female
protagonist who is the victim in the novel, but the worst of all are the other
women characters who being forged and moulded into the roles of the godmother,
the mother-in-law, maid servant, and women in the neighbourhoods who instead of
understanding, and at least showing solidarity with each other are constantly
trying to monitor each other, constantly reminding each other to follow the
herd. Thus, the Hindu patriarchal structure is getting more consolidated when
the women themselves are unable to forge unity to break it. The institution of
marriage is not just preserved through traditions, but it perpetuates itself
through the oppressed and thus reproduces the conditions of its own existence.
The author wonderfully captures this decapitating dilemma of the protagonist
who seeks to move out from the domestic prison and pursue her desires to become
financially independent rather than depending on the mercy of her husband. He
on the other hand has brought her as a trophy to his home winning her love, and
is proudly committing infidelity blaming his wife for not entertaining him
after marriage. He just sees her as an object to give him pleasure and
entertain him all his life.
Also, when she finds another male companionship
in her life she is faced with the same conflict of culminating her
companionship into another marriage, and thus falling into the same structure
of existence. Diana has thus offered a way to her protagonist to denounce the
structure itself and asserted through her protagonist that love does not
necessarily require a tag of being a wife of someone in conventional sense;
rather it requires a constant struggle to build an egalitarian companionship
between the lovers. It is not just the fight of one individual woman in the
novel, but rather the struggle of "half the sky" to democratise the
society. The novel through its conclusion subtly suggests that the only way
towards a free dawn is to demolish the structure rather than reforming it which
has been the problem of the mainstream feminist struggle in India which has set
the limits of dissent and is regulated by the overarching political and
economic structure of the country.
Reviewed by Sourabh
Kumar
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Ram Lal Anand College, University of Delhi
No comments:
Post a Comment