Chapter 3 The Madwoman in the Attic - Shodhganga

Chapter 3
The Madwoman in the Attic

The spirit of the Indian woman has not been totally crushed by the
continuum of dependency and submission. Education, employment and
self-fulfilment made some women understand that it was unfortunate that
they had been dependent on men, and submissive to their authority for so
long. These women have begun to see themselves as indivrduals with
minds of their own. This has made them rise in conflict against the
traditional roles and limitations imposed upon them. The conflict is yet in
its beginning stages in India where the hold of tradition is perhaps
stronger than in any other country. In spite of being more self-assertive at
present, Indian women are still not confident enough to contradict what is
thought best for them by their male counterparts. Though the great
majority lack the courage to express themselves, the signs of conflict
noticed now, indicate the more fulfilling roles that Indian women are
likely to play in the future.

The main reason for this conflict has been the chauvinistic male
attitude towards women. The history of mankind reveals the story of male
domination over women, except in certain socio-cultural pockets where
matriarchy prevailed. The view that man is superior and woman inferior
has been fostered by religion, the customs in society and the literary texts.
The woman has been seen as "the nonsocial, nonpolitical, norhuman half"
(Cixous and Clement 66) of the race of human beings.

In India, women enjoyed a high status during the Vedic age. The

brahminical text, The Siltupatha Brahrnana (1000-700 BC) tells us that woman

was regarded as an equal sharer with man of the responsibilities of the home
and the ceremonies of religion. But there is another view also:

. . . in the same Brahrnana, there is another passage which

shows that woman is regarded as intellectually inferior to
man, or rather, that she is regarded as more emotional and less
rational by nature than man; therefore she is apt to fall an easy
prey to external appearances; she lacks the ability for true
appreciation or balance of mind and does not possess depth of
reason. (I'rabhu 259)
Various religious texts stress the need to control woman because of the
evils of female character. A woman is considered the embodiment of vices-
falsehood, vanity, greed, impatience, stupidity and hypocrisy. The benevolent
female deities in Hinduism like Lakshmi and Parvati are those under the
control of a divine male, with the male, the dominant member of the pair.
U~estrainedfeminine?power, represented by Kali, is seen as dangerous and
malevolent. Thus, the Hindu religion seems to convey the idea that the female
needs to be restrained by the male. The same idea percolated into society also.
The social relationship of marriage is seen as subduing the dangerous force of
the female. Thus, the male acts as a restraining factor and converts the female,
evil by nature, into a benevolent being.

The subordination of woman to man continued down the ages aided
by socialization. Personality and character differences are basically
influenced by the cultural norms of the society in which an individual is
born and bred. These traditions, beliefs and attitudes influence the
behaviour of men and women born in the culture from early childhood,
and mould and shape their behaviour to bring it in conformity with the
standards in that culture. It thus becomes a vicious circle-men and
women behave in certain typical ways in a society because they are
moulded so by society, and the society expects them to behave in these
ways because all the men and women in that society are found to follow
these modes of behaviour. Socialization leads to man seeing himself as
superior to woman and woman seeing herself as inferior to man. "The
basic premise is that women are deficient carbon copies of men" (Oakley
333). Women come to have merely a chattel status. "Thus humanity is
male and man defines woman not in herself, but as relative to him; she is
not regarded as an autonomous being" (Beauvoir, The Second Sc.x 16).

Feminist thinkers look for the sources of male power, not in men's
greater physical strength, but in the major institutions of society. " . . . the
military, industry, technology, universities, science, political office, and
finance-in short, every avenue of power within society, including the
coercive force of the police, is entirely in male hands" (Millet 25). Millet's
Sexual Politics is devoted to an examination of the ways in which the
conventional institutions of society, such as the family, the state, ideology

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and culture, are responsible, socially and psychologically, for producing and
enforcing patriarchy. She uses the term "politics" to refer to ,,power-
structured relationships whereby one group of persons is controlled by
another" (23).Horrocks in his Masculinity i n Crisis says that "by looking at
gender relations as power relations, feminist sociologists have been able to
demonstrate how male domination is sustained by work practices, by the
structure of the family, by heterosexual practices and by the structure of the
state itself" (13).

The patriarchal culture for long covered women in myth and has
efficiently used gender to conflate all women into Woman, the sexual
category of Man. This denies a woman her selfhood.

Amena Mohsin, in her article, "Gendered Nation, Gendered Peace"
in The Indian lournal of Gender Studies, argues that even the nation's policies
are gendered:

The modern state is a gendered state. Predicated on the idea of
'nation', the state valorises and celebrates 'masculinity' and

hegemonism. . . . Many women's voices have been silenced by

the state in the name of protecting the chastity or honour of
mother and sister. The self-assumed role of protector
establishes the hegemony of men over women. (43)

a

Nationlism marginalizes minorities, i.e. ethnic and religious
A

minorities, and also women. The term "minority" is used here, not only in

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numerical terms, but also to imply a group's access to resources, ability to
participate, and capacity to make decisions in state institutions.

In literature too, there were stereotyped images of women in the
writings by men. These pictures were based on pre-conceived notions and
were not realistic. 'The stories in Ur-texts and epics were sometimes
altered by the redactors to fit in with the pre-conceived notions.
"Dushyanta is simply forgetful of his vows to Shakuntala as given in the
epic, but Kalidasa clears the character of the king from this seeming
baseness by attributing his loss of memory to a curse provoked by a
negligence of the heroine herself (Madhu 50 - 51).

There was a duality in the projection of women in literature. She was
deified as well as vilified:

Women are rarely presented as women and realistically. Very
often, either woman is portrayed as a selfless, self-denying,

sacrificing, compliant angel - a symbol of purity and beauty;
or else she is presented as a monster - the villain, victimizer,

-devourer, predator as one who like Eve instigates man to

do things which ultimately ruin him, as one who frustrates
man's attempts to make a better life. (Pandhya 42)
The early writers of Indian English literature reinforced the
conventional images. Women characters adhered to the mythic prototypes
like Sita and Savitri, especially the women characters in fiction.

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Conventional women characters dominate the early novels and the early
plays written in English.

Feminist criticism had left drama untouched till recently. There were
few attempts at analyzing the presentation of women characters in plays
written by men, who enjoyed a monopoly in the field of drama. Recent
studies of women characters in earlier drama reveal that the dramatists
portrayed not what women felt and experienced, but what they thought
women should feel and experience. However, there has been a change in
recent Indian English drama which has seen a more realistic portrayal of
women. As C. S. Lakshrni says in her Preface, "And Kannagi Plucked Out a

Breast" to Body Blozus: Women, Violenceand Survival - Three Plays:

The performance area must become the re-claimed body site
seen from different perspectives, appearing dismembered and
unified, destroyed and resurrected all at once. The stage must
become the body transformed into a sign, !signifying a
thousand meanings, creating a thousand texts. (vii)
This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section deals with
the male view of women which influences the way women are treated in a
patriarchal society. It was once believed that a woman physically and
intellectually resembles a man whose individual evolution is incomplete.
Charles Darwin said,."Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic
than woman and has a more inventive genius" (321). In India, Manu's
Manusmriti pushed women into the role of subordinates. As Kaur says in

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her introduction to Gender and Literature: " Apatriarchal social set:up firmly
asserts man's superiority over women and is based not on mutuality but on
oppression" (xi). One of the major concerns of feminist theorists has been
the exploration of the ways in which dominant ideologies, particularly
those of heterosexuality, monogamy, motherhood and the puhlic/private
dichotomy contribute to the maintenance of male domi:nance and
patriarchy. The current concerns of feminism extend from the overt
oppression that the male-dominated social order imposes on an
uneducated and financially backward or conventionally religious woman
to the invisible and subtle strain experienced by the educated and
seemingly independent woman in such societies. This section makes a
study of Indian male attitudes as revealed in the plays under study and
probes into the reasons for such attitudes.
Women as Objects of Sex

"Patriarchy is :sexual colonialism in which gender relationships are
in terms of domination and subordination" (N.P. Kumar 36). It accepts a
sexual ideology which determines what is deemed socially acceptable
behaviour for men and for women. "The function of an ideology is to
justify the status quo and to persuade the powerless that their
powerlessness is inevitable " (Ruthven 31).

The male gaze treats women as objects. For man, woman "is sex-

absolute sex, no less . . ." (Beauvoir, The Second Sex 16). Though this seems

to be an extreme statement, there is some truth in it. Patriarchy attempts to

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reduce women to their bodies conceived in the most narrowly functionalist
and reductionist terms. Men are able to use their superior power position
to treat women as objects, primarily as sex objects, rather than as human
beings. Many of the male characters in the plays under consideration reveal
their sexual proclivity towards women.

"Feminist theory asserts that woman finds herself in a male-
constructed world in which man is the subject and woman his constructed
sex-object" (Mukheji 51). In Ezekiel's "Nalini", Bharat and Raj see all
women as sex objects. The play deals with an artist, Nalini, who
approaches Bharat, a self-appointed patron of fine arts, to arrange an
exhibition of her paintings. Before meeting her, when Bharat visualizes
Nalini, he sees her as "slender and sweet, tall. Fair, completely mod in
style, her hair done up in a beehive, her choli short, low-cut and backless,
revealing a figure of some splendour. She wears her sari like a tight skirt
and walks in it with casual elegance" (TP 25). He rises like "a hawk to meet
her " (TP 25). His words are filled with sexual innuendoes. In his fantasy,
he undresses her and makes love to her. It is only in his fantasy that he is
able to rise up to his own expectations of himself as a macho male. Such
male fantasies often originate as the result of sexual repressions.
Socialization persuades the male to see himself as sexually powerful and
virile. This is why many men, like Bharat and Raj, project themselves as
men of the world, who have had many amatory encounters. Man's ability
to perform sexually is often taken as a yardstick of his ability in other areas.

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Thus, we find Bharat and Raj taking more interest in Nalini the woman
than in Nalini the artist. Bharat tells Raj that he is going to arrange the
exhibition of Nalini's paintings "in exchange for Nalini's kisses . . . and all
that" (TP 11). They pun on the phrase "all that", revealing their prurient
interest in Nalini.

Naresh, in Ezekiel's "Marriage Poem", has an imaginary lover, Leela,
who appears whenever he needs her. The incompatibility between Naresh
and his wife, Mala, and his inability to break away from the relationship,
make him escape into the world of fantasy. His ego is flattered when his
phantom lover says that she does not mind "the secrecy, the lies, the danger
of scandal" (TP 68),as long as she can meet him once a week. Ezekiel's "Song
of Deprivation", is a telephonic conversation between a "He" 2md a "She".
The man finds an outlet for his frustration at not being able to meet the girl, by
indulging in erotic conversation. He talks of undressing her, licking the
perspiration off her body, showering with her and so on (n.pag.).As Warner
says, "Man is to woman as subject is to object" (107). So such sexual fantasies
are symptomatic of the Indian society which is full of inhibitions and
restrictions.

Currimbhoy's "'The Doldrummers", begins with Joe "ogling at Rita's
legs and thighs" (DV0 2). Later he says, "Rita or Liza, you're all the same
to me. Women with something nice between their legs" (DD0 30). He
equates sex with love: "You think of the word love like something from a
fairy book, patented and germ-free. Like it had to have respectability. Well,

it's not. It's love that the whore dispenses around the street corner, and it's
the most respectable that pay its price" ( D D 0 31). In Currimbhoy's "Goa"
too, both Alphonso and Krishna equate love with sex. They both desire and
want Rose, and Mirantla tries to turn this to her advantage. Alphonso is so
desperate to sleep with Rose, that Miranda makes fun of him and calls him
"the impatient virgin" (GHO 65). Sarah in Currimbhoy's This Alien - - -
Native Land, succinctly says, men are "predatory"(39). The above examples
illustate the point that most men see women as objects created for their
sexual pleasure.

The sexual exploitation of women at the work place is one of the
issues in Mehta's "Getting Away with Murder". Pankaj Pinglay, Mallika's
business partner has a condescending air towards her even though she
manages the foodstuffs agency competently. As she says, "His
contribution continues to be nil-exactly that, Sonali. He's not even the
brawn of our operation-never mind his pretensions to being its brains!"
(BB 61). Later she learns of how Pinglay had been blackmailing the
secretary Thelma to agree to sexual liaisons with him. He had caught her
making long distance calls to Jabalpur from the office telephone when her
mother had fallen ill. Mallika pre-empts Pinglay's move by telling him
that Thelma had confessed to using the office telephone. The sexual
harassment of women at the work place is one of the pressing issues of
the feminist movement at present. It is said that the cases that come to
light are just the tip of the iceberg. MacKinnon in her Sexual ~farassmentof

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Working Women:A Case of Sex Discrimination (1979)argues that the forms
of power men have over women are seen to be expressed through
sexuality. She uses examples of sexual harassment at work, rape,
pornography and prostitution to prove her point. Men sexually objectify
women and, through doing so, exert power over them. "Female sexuality
is not simply experienced by the woman as an aspect of herself that she
can enjoy and communicate; it is, because of her social position, both a
product for herself and her product in the world(Eichenbaum and
Orbach 6).

Older men are said to have a penchant for young girls. Sandip
Joglekar, the aging film maker in Mehta's "The Myth-Makers" is aptly
described by Anand as one such profligate: "If a mistress is nearing 45,
who can blame the man for wanting to change her like a bank note, for two
twenty twos, or even three fifteens?" (n.pag.). To Joglekar, "a woman is a
well-laid table that he sees with different eyes before and after each meal . . ."
(n.pag.). Pramila, who belonged to the community of leather workers,
considered as outcastes in their village, had been easily seduced by
Joglekar. She had not known then "that men in power value the thing they
desire only so long as it eludes their grasp" (n.pag.). She had not even
known that he was at the same time courting an actress. She had slowly
become aware of his true colours. Any girl was a prey worthy of pursuit to
him, even Pramila's maid, Mukthi. Finally Pramila sees him as he is - ' l . . .
shall we say that what we have here is an aging fat-faced Ravana, vain,

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gouty, in hot pursuit of skirts, a hunting beast with plastic teeth and visions

of virgins to maul. . ." (n.pag.). But, by then, it is too late for Pramila.

Seeing women i3s sources of sexual pleasure, and then deserting
them after having exploited them sexually, is often seen in society. This is
why in Kamad's 'h-Fire and the Rain, Nittilai's father calls the village
elders for a meeting with Arvasu in a hurry when he learns of the closeness
between the two of them. He knows that high-caste men often have sex
with tribal girls and then desert them. Nittilai explains, "Do you know
why Father called the elders in such haste? He always says: "These high-
caste men are glad enough to bed our women but not to wed them"' (8).

Women are also used as sexual objects by men, with ulterior
motives. The woman is seduced into believing that the man loves her,
whereas she is only a means towards an end. In The Fire and the Rain,
Yavakri uses Vishakha to get his revenge on Raibhya. He feels that his
father, Raibhya's brother, did not get the honours he deserved. So he waits
for Vishakha, Raibhya's daughter-in-law, reminds her of their love for each
other before he went to the forest to meditate, and seduces her. Later,
Raibhya lets loose a ~nonsterto kill him. Vishakha rushes to warn Yavakri,
and learns that he had deliberately created such a situation to match his
powers with Raibhya's. While Vishakha had been feeling guilty because
she had yielded to him, thus paving the way to this situatior~h, e says, "It
was fortunate that you yielded. If you hadn't I would have had to take you
by force" (23). Yavakri, thus, unscrupulously, exploits Vishakha's feelings

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for him, to further his plans. But Vishakha still continues to blame herself.
As Lakshmi says in "And Kannagi Plucked Out a Breast", "Blaming one's

own self -one's body - for the other's feelings and actions, and considering

one's body as merely ;magent of provocation, is a way of looking at the
body as being worthy of punishment " (xi).

Just as forced sex is a crime against women, the witholding of a
sexual relationship in marriage, is an equally severe crime. Joglekar, the
womanizer, in Mehta's "The Myth-Makers", is forced to marry Laxmi,
Rajan's sister. A building in the construction of which he had been
involved, had collapsed causing the death of many workers. Rajan knew
that the building materials were substandard and he had used this
information to blackmail Joglekar into marrying his sister. Joglekar had, in
turn, taken his revenge by not consummating the marriage. As Rajan

realized too late -"he treats her like a servant in the house . . . He has not

touched her! Not once! She is still a virgin. . . the only virgin he has not

defiled [. . .l" (n.pag.).

Socialization serves to make a woman feel guilty about her sexual
desires as exemplified in the mental conflict of Rani in Karnad's Naga-
Mandala. The same play also shows how a proper union between male and
female can be equally enjoyed by both as seen in the case of Rani and Naga.
Hence the non-consummation of marriage is a denial of the rights of a wife.
It is a negative punishment meted out to a woman. It is this punishment
that Appanna metes out to his wife, Rani. He locks her up in the house and

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comes once a day for his afternoon meal. He spends the rest of the time
with his mistress. Rani's suppressed desires find fulfilment only after Naga
starts visiting her in the guise of Appanna. But because of the ingrained
notions of a patriarchal culture, which stipulate that female sexuality is
only for the enjoyment of the male, she feels guilty about her enjoyment.

Two of Dattani plays, "Bravely Fought the Queen" and "On a Muggy
Night in Mumbai", deal with homosexuals who enter into marriages to hide
their predilections. h1 "Bravely Fought the Queen", Nitin who had a
homosexual relationship with Praful, later marries Praful's sister, Alka. The
unsuspecting Alka is thus trapped in a loveless marriage. Similarly, in "On a
Muggy Night in Mumbai", Kamlesh is horrified to learn that his sister,
Kiran, is going to marry his former lover, Prakash, who is now pretending to
be heterosexual. Such marriages of convenience for the men deprive their
hapless wives of the rightful sexual pleasures of marital life.

Whether it is sexual harassment or sexual denial, the feelings of the
woman are not considered at all. For a man, his wife is usually ". . . a doll of

flesh for him to play with. . ." (Mehta, Brides Are Notfor Burning 73).

Male Violence Against Women
Violence against women is a pandemic that knows no boundaries of

culture, geography, age or wealth. Yet, it is generally downplayed by the
public, as social processes continue to support men's societal domination.
According to Juanita Williams:

. . . society has a long tradition of male dominance over
women, and of tolerance of physical punishment and restraint
of women by men. The tacit acceptance of male aggression
toward women is exemplified in films, pornography, rock
music and other media whose dominant motif is the
degradation of women. (352)
There is no area where the androcentric bias is more visible and systematic
than that of male violence against women. The reasons for male violence
are many.
Frequently we find that such men have deep feelings of
inadequacy, impotence and unwantedness. The violent male
often sec-retlyfears that he is not a man, and sees no other way
of proving he is, than the method demonstrated to him by his

society-violence and oppression. (Horrocks31)

Helene Cixous in her "Castration or Decapitation?" tells the story of
a Chinese king who ordered his general to make soldiers out of his
hundred and eight wives. The women started laughing and talking instead
of marching to the drumbeats. Their actions were deemed mutinous and
the two women commanders were beheaded. Immediately the others began
marching in complete silence. Cixous says," Women have no choice other
than to be decapitatecl, and in any case, the moral is that if they don't actually
lose their heads by the sword, they only keep them on condition that they lose then1

- lose them, that is.. to complete silence, turned into automatons" (4243).

Thus, women are bludgeoned into silence and submission by the threat of
male violence.

Domestic violence is silent and invisible because it is private, and
often, social conditioning and false notions of family honour, drive even
the victims to comply with attempts to keep it that way. As Visa Ravindran
states in her newspaper article, "When Terror Strikes . . . at Home",
"domestic violence is a violation of basic human rights: the right to life and
security, and, indirectly, the right to shelter and livelihood (4). Domestic
violence, which till recently was not given much significance, has now
become a legal and humanitarian issue. Wife-beating is often thought of as
the concrete actualization of a husband's right over his wife. So it is
considered normal by society and by the wife herself. Lakshmi narrates in
"And Kannagi Plucked Out a Breast":

There are . . . bits of family folklore which speak of feral
women being tamed as a normal way of human life. A group
of migrants from the Telugu region who have been
inhabitants of the Tirunelveli area for the last two hundred
years, has a legend of a wild woman who could not be
controlled. A handsome and valorous man controlled her by
hooking her nose and dragging her along. Later she wore the
hook by which she was controlled as a piece of jewellery. . . .
That a nose hook can become a jewellery is probably the
ultimate acceptance of attack as deliverance, of punishment as

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kindness, of invasion of one's body as the outcome of the guilt
of being a woman. The notion of controlling the female body,
shaping, re-forming and rerouting its work, movement and
space, is a constant and persistent one. It is so deeply
ingrained. that certain forms of violence, such as beating, are
considered as a natural part of a woman's life. Imposition of
control over the female body through various forms,
including violence, is such an accepted notion that it becomes
a part of everyday life. (viii-ix)
According to Walby in Patriarchy at Work, "systematic,
institutionalized male violence against women should be regarded as a
patriarchal structure. The types of violence include: rape, sexual assault,
battery and sexual harassment . . ." (61-62). The threat of violence coerces
women into dependence upon those very men who threaten them. In
Ezekiel's Don't Call It'-Suicide, Shiela is shocked to know that her brother,
Hari, is a wife-beater. Malti puts up with the physical abuse because she
has nowhere to go. The greatest problem for women with violent husbands
is the lack of accommodation and shelter elsewhere. The responsibility of
the children and economic dependence prevent them from making a life of
their own.
In Dattani's "On a Muggy Night in Mumbai", Kiran talks of her ex -
husband and the violence she suffered at his hands:

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I had to get away from him. To escape from those fights at
night. And the nightmare wouldn't end. The humiliation of

explaining to friends or neighbours . . . that the black eye was

from banging my head against the door. Or the broken rib was

from a fall. . . . It was the cigarette bums on my arms I couldn't

explain, that finally made my brother call the police. . . . They
arrested him. Oh no, justice doesn't last for long. He was free
the next day. His parents bailed him out. And my parents

wanted me to. . . adjust ! (CP 77)

Here, though Kiran suffers physically and mentally, she does not do
anything to save herself. As she says on another occasion, "When my
husband beat me up, I truly believed and felt that he loved me. I felt he

loved me enough to want to hurt me. . . . I wanted to feel loved by a man.

In whichever way he wanted to love me" (CP 107).Society teaches a wife
to keep a marriage going whatever be the cost to her mind and body.
Acording to Walby:

In a society where marriage is held in such high esteem,
where there is a commonly held notion that romantic love
overcomes all problems, where single parenthood is generally
stigmatized, and where a woman is encouraged to be
emotionally as well as materially dependent on her husband,
it is not surprising that it is difficult for women to escape
violent relationships. (Patrirchy at Work 65)
This results in the masochistic attitude seen in Kiran.

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Daksha is beaten by Hari for going to Zarine's house (Dattani,"Final
Solutions" 222), till she agrees not to go there anymore. Similarly, Baa in
Dattani's "Bravely Fought the Queen", had been regularly beaten by her
husband. Even then, all that she thinks of is how to hide the truth from
others. During the beating, she helplessly keeps crying out, "No! No! not
on the face ! What will the neighbours say? Not on the face. I beg you! Hit

me but not on . . . aaah!" (CP 278). Wife beating is a projection of male

aggrandizement, and the behaviour of the father is often duplicated in the
attitude of the son. Thus, Jiten imitates his father's "macho" behaviour and
beats his wife, Dolly. He even manhandles her during her pregnancy. He
hits her on the stomach and, as a result, she gives birth tc~a mentally
retarded child. "The women, Baa, Dolly and Alka, are all victims of male
anger " (Tyagi 194).

The violence that women face is multi-faceted. It is not always
physical. It is "often subtle and insidious and hard to recognize, presented
as it usually is in the guise of respect, idealization, concern or
protectiveness " (A. Singh 67). Kanak Raya in Sarabhai's Two Women is a
loving husband to all outward appearances. However, his wife, Anuradha,
finds his attempts at moulding her to his specifications suffocating to the
extreme. It is a mental torture to her.

The restraints suffered by women form the sub-text of Dattani's
"Dance Like a Man". Though the play, apparently, challenges gender
stereotyping, it is "an endorsement of traditional family norms, where a

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man will always dance like a man, but a woman must also be a wife, a
mother and a daughter-in-law" (Multani, "On Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like
a Man: The Politics of Production and Performance" 60). The puppeteer in
the play, who controls the action from behind is Jairaj's father, Amritlal
Parekh, a wealthy landowner and businessman. Jairaj wants to dance, and
is thus a disappointment to his father. He gets married to Ratna, who
marries him mainly because he would let her dance. However, Jairaj is
defeated when his father colludes with Ratna to spoil his chances of a
dancing career, while at the same time, furthering hers. The end of the play
reveals the skeleton in the closet. Ratna, on one of her night programmes,
had left her infant son in the care of a servant, after feeding the baby a
small dose of opium to let it sleep soundly. Unknown to her, the maid had
done the same thing. The two doses of opium had killed the baby. Thus,
the play ultimately damns the character of the woman.

. . . her single-minded pursuit of her dance even at the cost of

her infant son's life is portrayed as the ultimate damning
factor in her character, but the same obsession with dance in
Jairaj is valorized as a vibrant and dynamic force which his
wife helped destroy. Ratna, being a woman, a wife and a
mother cannot be expected to have, or even to want, a full-
time career in dancing. (Multani, "On Mahesh Dattani's Dance
Like a Man: The Politics of Production and Performance " 59)

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Thus, even in this play, which questions sexual stereotyping, the
finaljudgement is in accordance with the norms of a patriarchal society.

The Trauma of Rape
Rape is a male prerogative and is sometimes seen as the test of man's

superior strength and the truimph of his manhood. Feminists interpret rape
as an act of violence motivated by the needs for power and domination
over women. "Blatant examples of male brutality towards women can be
located in a continuun~of male power over women, along with a variety of
economic, psychological and social mechanisms of control" (Hanmer and
Maynard 27). Brownmiller's book, Against Our Will:Men, Women and Rape
(1976), is perhaps the most famous of the radical feminist works that deal
with rape. For her, rape is a mechanism of male social control over women
that relies as much on generalized threat and fear as on the actual use of
force. Rape is not an act of sexual gratification but an exercise in power and
intimidation made possible by the anatomical differences between men and
women. Brownmiller also exposes the sexist biases in the modern legal and
judicial systems' attitudes to rape and the legitimizations of rape provided
for men in society, by virtue of their occupying positions of authority.
Official responses to rape excuse or justify male violence and allocate
blame to the female vlctims.

Senhora Miranda speaks of the night of horror and cruelty when she
was raped and Rose conceived (Currimbhoy, "Goa"). The violence of rape

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is seen in her words: "That's why I called her Rose . . . the colour of blood

that broke when she was conceived " (GHO 87). Later, Krishna convinces

her that she can liberate herself from the horror only through witnessing
the rape of Rose. He makes her hold Rose down as he rapes her. The rape is
all the more traumatic for Rose because she has been taught to fear the
touch of men. "The rape is indeed a monumental violation: of Rose the
innocent girl who had been taught to fear even the touch of man, of Maria,
who relived the 'deepest horror' of her own rape . . ." (Pan 80). The rape,
though symbolic of the Indian military assault on Goa, conveys the victim's
sense of helplessness.

The act of love, when it is forced on a woman, becomes, in Joe's
words in "The Doldrummers", "crucifixion". " Man always pins a woman
'neath him. Like a butterfly with beautiful wings, spread out and pinned.
For a woman, it's crucifixion" ( D D 0 25).

The trauma of rape is fully brought out in Padmanabhan's "Lights
Out". Subramanyam in "Muffled Voices: Women in Modern lndian
Theatre" says:

Manjula Padmanabhan looks at the problem of violence on
women as seen through the male gaze. In this tautly written
play, a group of young people discuss clinically the definition
of rape as they peer through their window at a gruesome
scene of violence, even as women in the group attempt to
intervene. Through a series of calculated moves and

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hair-splitting logic, the women find themselves echoing the
views of the dominant male group. (21)
Bhaskar and Leela live in a colony, and in full view of the houses,
some helpless woman is subjected to gang rape every night. Leela tries to
make her husband lodge a complaint with the police. She feels, "[. . .] we're

part of . . . what happens outside. [. . .] by watching it, we're making

ourselves responsible -" ( B B 6). Bhaskar's friend, Mohan, comes for
dinner because he wants to watch the rape. He says, he wants to be "just
far enough not to get imnvolved, just close enough to see everything clearly"
( B B 15).He wants to know how the women scream, whether the screams
are high-pitched or hysterical or musical. When Leela says that the screams
are horrid and "gurgly" ( B B 18), the men analyze the information. They
discuss whether what they see is a domestic quarrel or a murder or even a
religious rite. Mohan justifies his watching it from the darkened windows
as "a clear case of sociological concern! A duty!" (BB 30). While Leela and
her classmate, Naina, who drops in later, are anguished by the screams, it
is almost funny to hear the men talking:

BHASK.4R : The four men, the woman, the nakedness, the
screaming, the exhibitionism . . .

MOHAIQ : It -could -still -be -religious. ( B B 36)

They watch the woman being kicked, being hit with fists and her
legs being held apart by the assailants. They, then, decide that it is an
exorcism: "Often in an exorcism, the possessed person is already in great

agony, has convulsions and screams loudly and recklessly, sometimes in a
hoarse, unnatural voice . . . " ( B B 37).

When Leela finally says that it is a rape, both men deny it
vehemently. Naina plainly describes the scene: "Three men holding down
one woman, with her legs pulled apart, while a fourth thrusts his -organ
-into her! What would you call that-a poetry reading?" ( B B 39). Bhaskar,
then, comes up with an explanation that satisfies the women- the woman-
victim is a whore. Therefore, she need not be pitied, for a whore cannot be

-raped. Naina ironically says, "But does that mean that only decent

women can be raped?" (BB 40).Mohan succinctly says, "After all, finally,
the difference between men and women is that women are vulnerable to

rape . . ." ( B B 43). Finally, Leela and Naina are insidiously drawn into

reducing the woman-victim to an object.
Yet in the final analysis, it is impossible to mistake an answer
of 'no', which is full of fear and expectation of pleasure, with
the cry for help of a rape victim; and the fact that the
patriarchy feels so damn sure of itself in the confusion is a
severe indictment of the quality of the erotic culture which it

has created. . . . (Sichtermann 40)

Surinder, Naina's husband, who comes later, is full of sound and
fury and wants to go out and attack the assailants with knives. They, then,
talk of using petrol or acid, and of running over them in a car. The

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discussion veers wildly as they talk of guns and electrocution. Meanwhile,
the screaming stops. ? I e play ends with the dramatist's note:

This play is based on an eye-witness account. The incident
took place in Santa Cruz, Bombay, 1982.
The characters are fictional. The incident is a fact.
In real life, as in the play, a group of ordinary middle-class
people chose to stand and watch while a woman was being
brutalized in a neighbouring compound.
In real life, as in the play, the incident took place over a period
of weeks.
And in real life, as in the play, no-one went to the aid of the
victims. (BB 53)
In an email interview with the researcher, Padmanabhan talks of the
audience reaction to the play:
The moment the screaming begins, the mood alters, and the
audience begins to feel uncomfortable by the sound. The men
sympathize with the men on-stage and are desperate to 'see',
while the women squirm because they empathize with the
screamer. . . . the play causes polarities to occur within the
audience between men and women. (Appendix 2)
The play is a clear indication of how society turns a blind eye to even
the most clear cases of violence against women. The incident "is used to
epitomize the violence and exploitive neo-colonialism of the

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male-dominant Indian society" (A.Singh 68). Women are more sensitive to
such issues, but they often rely on men to do something about it. Since the
perpetrators are men, men dislike taking action, and therefore try to
pretend that there is no problem at all. Or else like Surinder, they make a
lot of noise, but do nothing practical or sensible. Thus, rape, which is the
utmost violation of a woman's body and self, is allowed to continue.
Women's lack of access to state power ensures that men, who rape and
otherwise molest women, are rarely punished by the judicial system. When
all the evidence points to a clear case of rape, the tendency is to blame the
woman for being immoral or for provoking the man. As Nighat Gandhi
says in his newspaper article "Hands Off" dated 11 September 2005
dealing with the outrage of rape: "To place the entire onus of violence
against women on women is unjust. To blame women for their own

victimisation is to make invisible the real issue - the inferior status of

women in a patriarchal society" (2). In spite of being the victim, the
woman is held responsible, rather than the man, who is the perpetrator.
Female sexuality is held responsible for male sexuality and male
aggression.

However, such arguments do not hold water when it comes to a
case of child abuse. The sexual abuse of a girl child is probably the most
horrendous of crimes against the female sex. One of the themes in Mehta's
"Getting Away with Murder", is child abuse. Sonali suffers from
hallucinations. She does not want a female child and is ready to get the

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foetus aborted if the amniocentesis test shows a girl. In her earlier
pregnancy, the doctor had refused to do an abortion and Sonali had
caused a miscarriage herself. According to her, to be born a girl is to
suffer from "the terrors of passivity" ( B B 64). After the death of her
father, her uncle had taken care of her mother, her brother and herself.
This uncle had regularly abused her sexually. Her friends hear the story
from her brother, Gopal :

I guess there is no . . . less brutal way of saying that my sister

was sexually abused . . . from the time she was 8 years old.

And Sonali was 12 when Uncle Narotam broke his head. So

you can imagine . . . night after night. . . coming to her bed, the

pious swine with sandalwood paste on his fore-head and holy

beads round his neck . . . the pig! Sometimes I heard them. He

. . . threatened her into silence . . . and submission . . . the
screams she swallowed must still be tearing her up inside. . . .
( B B 87-88)
Finally, Sonali had, in retaliation, engineered an accident which
killed the uncle. But she carries the scars of the abuse all through her life.
The trauma of child abuse is often only suppressed into the subconsciousto
surface at later stages in life.
The repercussions of childhood sexual abuse manifested in later life,
form the theme of Dattani's 30 Days in September. The intention of the play
"is to make visible women's experiences of childhood incest that have long

119

been suppressed (Gupta and Ailawadi xviii). Mala is sexually abused by
her maternal uncle at the age of seven. The abuse continues for many years,
whenever she and her mother visit him during the summer holidays or
whenever he visits them. Dattani gives the uncle and other men in the play,
who could be potential exploiters of women, the nomenclature "Man".
There is a scathing description of how the uncle goes about abusing the
little girl. He asks her to recite the poem she had learnt in school as he
continues his abuse.

Mala grows up thinking that her sexual attraction is her only good
quality. So she later invites and welcomes such attention from men. She
has a long list of men, with each one of whom, her relationship lasts for
exactly thirty days. As is said in the foreword to the play:

. . . Mala's seemingly compulsive sexual liaisons need to be
understood as a process of revictimisation whereby many
surviviors of incest unconsciously expose themselves to sexual
situations that have elements of exploitation reminiscent of
the abuse itself. (Gupta and Ailawadi xvi)
Mala finds it difficult to have a meaningful relationship with any man.
Thus, the scars of chiidhood incest perpetrated by men, affect every aspect
of the victim's life, even in adulthood.
The reasons for such deviant character in men are many. The
physical weakness of women, and the idea of dominance over women
provoke some to the deed. In Indian society which is ridden with

120

inhibitions, sexual feelings are usually repressed. Such feelings find
gratification in the act of rape. It could be the lack of other meaningful
relationships that leads men to such acts. One theory says that men abuse
women to disguise the fact that they fear them in some way. Sexual
conquest may be seen as one of the qualities of the macho male. Men resort
to violence when they feel they lack the skills, talents and resources to fulfil
the cultural expectations of superior patriarchal status.

Psychology tells of the anima in man, which is the female factor in
the unconscious of man, contrasexual to the male ego. It is shaped by a
man's relationship with his mother or mother-surrogates, who figure
prominently in his ichildhood. A distorted or malformed anima may
engender hostility or unhealthy attitudes towards women. It can make the
man treat the woman as an object. Brownmiller, however, undermines the
conventional approaches to rape, which see it either as the activity of a few
sick men, or as the result of women's provocation, and replaces them with
an account of rape as a form of women's oppression which is firmly rooted
in the patriarchal nature of societies. Whatever be the reason, it results in
the degradation of women. "The fear of violence permeates all spheres and
persons of all ages, proving to be a severe hindrance to women's capacity-
building and attainment of their potential" (Rustagi 329).

The Double Standards in Patriarchy
In any organization composed of two sections, when one section

predominates over the other, it leads to double standards -one for the

dominating and the other for the dominated. In human society, men apply
one set of rules to themselves and another to women. Freedom, adventure,
intellectual activities tmd careers are seen as male prerogatives. A woman
is condemned if she tries to experience any of them. "Man reserves for
himself the terrors and triumphs of transcendence, he offers women safety,
the temptations of passivity and acceptance; he tells her that passivity and
acceptance are her nature" (Spacks 16). Men are granted the power to
define, interpret, judge and represent the world on their own terms, while
women are to be defined, interpreted, judged and represented by the
standards set by men.

Most men talk of how women should be modem in their outlook,
but when it comes to their womenfolk, they impose traditional standards.
Bharat, in Ezekiel's "Nalini", fantasizes meeting Nalini before actually
seeing her. The Nalini of his fantasy is "modern" because she is
uninhibited in her association with men. She appears as a model in
magazines and fashion shows, attends parties, dances well and has a good
figure. He calls the "new Indian" (TP 14) women wonderful, because "they
are not all disgusting Sitas and Savitris" (TP 14). However, he wants his
woman to be a virgin till he meets her. Therefore, he makes the Nalini of
his fantasy slap him when he states that she is not a virgin. Ile wants the
best of both worlds-.a woman who is modern, yet traditional. That is what
Kanak Raya means when he says of his wife, Anuradha, "Now take my
wife. She has been to Europe. She is modern in many ways. But she

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remains a Hindu wif~:" (Sarabhai, Two Women 68). What he means is that
she is submissive to him.

Male double standards can be clearly seen in Tony's treatment of his
live-in lover, Rita, in Currimbhoy's "The Doldruinmers". He sees nothng
wrong in accepting presents from other women, even though it is Rita who
gives him board and lodging. He tells her that he wouldn't mind her getting
presents from others. But when this happens, and when Rita turns into a
prostitute to buy him presents and keep him happy, his attitude changes. He
resents it and prepares to leave her. Even though he knows that he is wholly
responsible for the change in her, he condemns her. His resentment does not
lead to any positive action. He cringes before her client because the man
t u r n out to be his former boss. He vents his frustration on Rita instead. Most
men expect women to tend to all their needs, but do not feel the need to do
the same for her. "Her total existence from birth to death is circumscribed by
and subservient to mim, while man himself is privileged not to be similarly,

reciprocally b o u n d (Mukherji 51- 52).

The body language of men is a projection of their dominating positon
in society. Dattani's ''On a Muggy Night in Mumbai", tells of a meeting of
homosexuals and lesbians in Kamlesh's house. Many of the homosexuals
pretend to be heterosexuals in society. It is merely "a playacting of
heterosexuality that is conscious of being only window dressing" (Sedgwick
260). Sharad, his friend, is one such closet homosexual. He is married and
says that he is able to fool society because he behaves as society expects "a

123

real man" (CP 101) to behave-"And make sure you occupy lots of room.
It's all about occupying space" (CP 101).He mimicks the way men walk, sit
and behave: "Look at all the kings around you, look at all the ~nalepower
they enjoy, thrusting themselves on to the world, all that penis power!
Power with sex, power with muscle, power with size" (CP 101). It is as a
confirmation of this power that men wield the whip with women. A woman
who demands her space is, however, labelled "unfeminine" and condemned
as "a living insult to men" (TP 45).

The double standards become clearly evident in the relationship of
marriage. Marriage is a means of legalizing the power relations between
the sexes, and it establishes the power of the husband over his wife.
"Despite the idealized concept of marriage, woman in reality, is essentially
a subservient partner in marriage. Marriage often does not mean
companionship or equality for her, rather it is a trap which negates her
rights to individuality, independence and self-realization" (Maitra 49). The
individuality of the wife is subsumed in the person of the husband as can
be seen in Dattani's "Final Solutions". Daksha is given a new name after
marriage, Hardika, to match her husband's name, Hari. She describes a

typical husband in ber diary, ". . . he will come home, demand his food,

criticize it before eating it, answer me in grunts and groans and chew
tambacoo paan, sit on the big chair in the courtyard with his feet up and
stare into space" (197').

124

Men are often blind to the emotional needs of women in a marriage.
The unhappiness of their wives is weighed against the material comforts
provided. The conclusion reached by the husbands is that the wives have
no cause for complaint in the face of these comforts. Husbands like these
can be seen in Sarabhai's Two Women and Mehta's Brides L4reNot for
Burning.

Kanak Raya and his wife, Anuradha, live in two different worlds
(Two Women). The cracks in their marriage had appeared on the first day
itself. It had been a day of fasting for Anuradha. But Kanak Raya had
prepared a feast. When she had refused to eat, he had thrown the dishes on
the floor in anger. They were a mis-matched couple-the wife preferring a
life of quiet and spirituality, and the husband wanting a glamorous,
westernized life. The story of Sujatha and Lord Buddha that the guruji
narrates to Anuradha reveals the insignificance of material wealth when it
comes to peace of mind and compatibility in a married life. She feels that
the symbols of marriage have no sigmficance, ". . . the ritual is nothing. . . .
Even the show of this house, of this wedding mark (touching her kum-kum)

is nothing" (86 - 87).It is the feeling of hopelessness that makes her think of

leaving her husband and going to the Himalayas.
Laxmi, Vinod's wife in Brides Are Not for Burning, commits suicide by

immolating herself. Her sister, Malini and brother Anil suspect that she
was forced by harassment to commit suicide. When Am1 confronts Vinod,

he says, ". . . who says my wife was ill-treated in my home? [. . .] What did

125

Laxmi lack in my house, I ask you? In the five years we'd been married I
took her twice to Kashmir. Bought her a gold watch and a diamond nose-
ring. She did all her shopping by car" (61).According to Vinod, there is no
reason why his wife should not have been happy in such circumstances.

In "Marriage Poem", Ezekiel presents a realistic picture of a middle
class married couple, Naresh and Mala, and their relationship, which is one
based on compromise rather than love and companionship. "Marriage

Poem . . . presents the joys and sorrows of a married couple by contrasting

the male satiation and female devotion" (Reddy, Studies in Indian Wnting in
English: W i t h a Focus on lndian Drama 13).Naresh is a husband who "tired
of his wife seeks escape and expression of his unfulfilled free self with
other women" (H.M. Williams 124). He considers himself to be the
suffering victim of the marriage as is evident in the crucifixion pose he
adopts at the end of the play. He does not think of Mala too as a similar
victim. She gives him all her love and feels cheated that he does not return
it. Her frequent attempts to irritate him are merely ways of drawing his
attention. According 1:oWaugh, men project on to women,

aspects of their own experience which are regarded as
displaying 'weakness'. In a rationalist, individualist, profit-
oriented society, such characteristics will include
emotionality, relational impulses, dependency needs, and
nurturant behaviour. Invested with the intensity of such split-
off feelings, women will thus be seen as emotionally insatiable

126

and voracious, scheming to trap men into commitments such
as marriage and parenthood which threaten the
independence, freedom, and self-expression of the male. (70)
Marriage is the union of two different individuals. Temperamental
and ideological differences can make the partners in a marriage two
different islands. The woman who distances herself from her partner
suffers the agony of isolation, and the one who sacrifices her individuality
to sustain the relationship, suffers the humiliating experience of giving up
her identity. When a marriage is not based on mutual understanding and
acceptance, it ends in failure.
Another reason for the failure of marriages in India is the inability of
the couple to have children. The wife is usually blamed and branded a
barren woman. The husband marries again. In Mehta's Brides Are Not for
Burning,the father describes his first wife -"Docile and obedient she was.

Sujata. But she miscarried each time she became pregnant. . . . I sent her
away after ten years and six miscarriages . . ." (14). Being a wife and

becoming a mother are so deeply entwined, that a woman who has been
married several years and has not had a child, senses the curiosity and
concern of others regarding her childlessness, and feels a defect within
herself. This leads to the woman submissively accepting desertion.

An educated wife with a career suffers the same fate, as can be seen
in the case of Raziya in Mehta's "Getting Away with Murder". She has to
agree to her husband, Habib, marrying again to get a progeny. Since the

127

blame for childlessness is put squarely on the wife's shoulders, the
husband is often not willing to undergo medical tests. Habib and Uma's
husband, Suresh, in Dattani's "Seven Steps Round the Fire", feel resentful
when their wives suggest that they consult a doctor.

Ezekiel's Don't Call It Suicide reveals another double standard
practised in a patriarchal society. No one in the family has any sympathy for
the son's widow. All the members of the family seem to regard Meeta as a
mechanism with no feelings of her own. A widower loses nothing of his
status after the death of his wife, but a widow is considered a burden, and is

seen as inauspicious. In the play, Meeta does all the work in the household

and is treated on par with a servant. Yet nobody has a kind word to say to
her. "Irony is implicit in the way M. Nanda and his son-in-law discuss
cruelty on a large scale and seem impervious or blind to its presence in their
own home in their treatment of the young widow" (Nabar 79).

The attitude towards female sexuality in the plays exposes another
androcentric bias. Female sexuality is a locus of anxiety in patriarchal
discourse. Male control of the female body is culturally endorsed and
carries none of the implications attached to female control over the male.
While male sexuality is celebrated, female sexuality is usually subsumed in
reproduction. Female sexuality per se is not recognized. A inan's sexual
needs are considered natural and a sign of well-being, but a woman's
sexual urges are considered abnormal. "Though woman is defined by her
sexuality, she is restrained from enjoying her sexuality" (N. P. Kumar 41),
but there is a patriarchal endorsement of man's sexual urges.

128

Naresh in Ezekiel's "Marriage Poem" admires Malati because she is
"accessible" (TP 72). In spite of the fact that she is his friend Raniit's wife, he
makes passes at her. But he would not tolerate his wife being accessible to
other men. He values "the freedom of the individual, though
characteristically, this freedom is regarded as the prerogative of men only"
(Karnani 120).It has been pointed out that "men tend to control and regulate
the sexuality of those women who are within the familial network, while
remaining appreciative and lustful of female promiscuity directed at them
from outside the family" (Geetha 133).

The double standards in marriage are humorously depicted in "The
Sleepwalkers", "a delightful piece of social observation" (Dubey n.pag.)

MRS. RAMAN : 0 no, our husbands drink whisky, we drink
orange juice.

MRS. KAPUR : Our husbands eat meat, we eat vegetables.
(TP 86)

While the husbands have the freedom to flout tradition, the wives
are expected to stick to convention.

In Naga-Mandala, Appanna openly commits adultery but nobody
finds fault with him. The patriarchal code demands that a wife be sexually
faithful to her husband, but does not demand the same of the husband. So
while Appanna expects unquestioning obedience from his wife, he
appropriates to himself the freedom of the male sex. The concept of
morality is, thus, one-sided in patriarchy. It excuses, legitimizes and even

129

celebrates male promiscuity, while expecting women to live within the
bonds of marriage.

According to Sarat Babu in "The Concept of Chastity and Girish
Karnad's Naga-Mandula", Karnad "not only exposes male chauvinism and
the oppression of wo~nenand the great injustice done to them by men and
patriarchal culture, but also stealthily deflates the concept of chastity" (68).
Chastity is a concept invented by a patriarchal society which applies only
to women, and has been internalized by them. Literature glorifies women
who practise this emlaving virtue. Sita who undergoes the fire ordeal to
prove her chastity, i:; deified and held as a model to Indian women. A
woman, thus, suffers all the persecution of her husband in the name of
being a chaste wife. Thus, Rani suffers in silence her husband, Appanna's
behaviour when he treats her as a non-human being with no feelings of her
own. Sarat Babu goes on to say, "The solitary confinement of Rani by
Appanna in the house symbolizes the chastity belt of the Middle Ages, the
reduction of women's talents to housework and the exclusion of women
from enlightenment and enjoyment" (69). Even Naga, with whom she
enjoys sexual pleasure, suppresses her reason and intuition by invoking
patriarchal authority.

In the conventional Indian society, the primary objective of sex is
reproduction. Thus, the sigruficance of the act as a means of union between
the husband and wife is lost sight of. In "Bali: The Sacrifice", the King is
asked by his mother and others to take another wife, as the Queen does not

130

conceive. However, he refuses. After the Queen becomes pregnant, she
says that she wishes het had taken another wife. To his surprised query, her
answer is, " Yes, purely for bearing children. Then I could make love to
you-for its own sake-to make love. You don't know how I have pined
for that" (TWP 95). That a woman should enjoy sex for its own sake, is
unacceptable to most rnen in a patriarchal society.

Male Professional Jealousy
Another double standard practised by men presents itself in the field

of professional competence. The male ego does not permit most men to
acknowledge competency and cognition in women. Intelligence and
creativity are considered as fundamentally male qualities. Until the
beginning of the twentieth century, male intellectual superiority was
considered an established fact. "Investigatory efforts were directed only at
explaining the mechanisms accounting for gender differences in ability, not
at establishing whether ability differences actually did exist" (Shields 770).
Just as women are defined primarily through domestic relationships and
men by their position in the social order of work, "so too, women's
occupational roles are generally conceived as an extension of the domestic
(requiring nurturance, affective behaviour, diffuseness, rather than goal
orientation), and men's are conceived in terms of efficiency, profit
production, individual talent" (Waugh 48). In most cases, the reluctance to
accept, and the hostility towards women with minds of their own, are
prompted by the fear of being ousted from a position of monopoly.

131
Thus, the portrait of the Indian woman is normally the stereotyped
one. In many books written by men, "we are presented with portraits of
women in the kitchen, of women happy to watch their children play, of
women waiting for their husbands to notice them, of women mothering
their husbands, of women returning to their parents when their husbands

desert them" (Uma a).There is a reluctance to portray a career woman

who is good at her job. Many men feel that their power will be eroded if
women become successful in professional fields. Thus, many talented
women find that their talents die still-born. In fact, "the denial of
opportunities to women constitutes an apartheid (Ruthven 29).

Both Bharat and Raj do not consider Nalini a good painter (Ezekiel,
"Nalini"). This leads to a condescending attitude:

RAJ : She may improve if she is encouraged
BHARA'T:She may improve if she is criticized. (TP 13)
Bharat advises Nalini to paint village scenes. Perhaps he sees the
village as a fit symbol for woman while the city stands for man.
There is also a disparaging view of women who write. "Writing is an

intellectual activity, . . . the act of intellection has been accepted as a male

role in our society" (Sen, "Man, Woman and Fiction" 91-92).This attitude is
typified in Bharat's words:

The female writers are the most insufferable 01 all. Most of
them write only middles for The Times of India and articles
about their foreign junkets and intimate revelations about

132

their quarrels with their husbands and difficulties with their
children, all in a coy, giffly manner, as if saying all the time,
Look I can write too, I'm sensitive, I have feelings. It's awful.
(TP 13)
Bharat even says, "The less women talk, the less nonsense they talk"
(TP 13). According to him, women are incapable of thinking on their own:
"Women just love words. . . . Just big words. 1 bet Nalini will echo them
after fifteen minutes in my presence" (TP 18). Again, in Ezekiel's "The
Sleepwalkers", which is about the arrival of an American publisher to
launch a magazine, Mr. Kapur says that a magazine without thought will
be popular with Indian women (TP 90).
In Currimbhoy's "The Dumb Dancer", Prema, the mental asylum
superintendent, has to face the surprised reaction of most men to her job.
Dr. Dilip, who wants to marry her, wants her to work in the psychiatry
ward of his hospital and not independently. She finds that the fact that she
is a woman, interferes with the treatment of her patients. As she says, "My

patients must not think of me in terms of . . . sex" (DD0 1.38). But she

realizes that regardless of woman's increasing participation in the public,
productive sphere of society, it remains, in its practices and principles, a
man's world.

Malti's aspirations as a painter are not taken seriously (Currimbhoy,
Thorns on a Canvas).When her father organizes an exhibition, he commands
her to produce painting to order. She should paint exactly twenty five

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paintings-five on pastoral scenes, ten on national monuments and so on.

He does not tolerate any questions from her. Later when the father says, ". . .

slaves are often more :responsiblefor their perpetuation than the master . . .,,
(28), we hear the dramatist speaking. Malti finally succeeds in breaking the
bonds that suppress her, and begins to paint paintings with more life and
reality in them.

The entry of women into male-dominated institutions logically forces
men to admit that there are no innate differences in ability. "Where women
deliberately or inadvertently demonstrate their competence, they generate

insecurity . . ." (Hanrner and Maynard 70). In a patriarchal society, certain

activities are set apart for women-teaching, gardening, nursing, writing
poetry or romantic fiction and so on. Serious writing, reading, and thinking
are considered, not only alien, but also inimical to women. It is implied that
"when such creative energy appears in a woman, it may be anomalous,
freakish, because as 03 'male' characteristic, it is essentially 'unfeminine' "
(Gilbert and Gubar 96). Lalitha, in Dattani's "Bravely Fought the Queen",
describesher daily routine :

Oh, I keep myself occupied. I do a bit of writing. Freelance. I
write an occasional woman's column for the Times.Sometimes
I review cultural events. I am into meditation. And, oh yes, I
grow bonsai plants-I've been growing them for years. I do a
bit of creative writing as well. You know, poetry and stuff like
that. (CI' 243)

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This describes the kind of life a woman can best hope for in a male-
dominated society. The creative woman poses a constant threat to the man,
not simply because he is a man, but because she is a threat to the whole
system that made him this kind of man. It is knowledge of this, that despairs
Tara's mother, Bharati (Dattani, "Tara"). She knows that her daughter Tara
is highly intelligent. And she knows that intelligence and smartness in
women are not assets in a patriarchal society. She tells her sort and Tara's
twin, Chandan: "It's all right while she is young. It's all very cute and
comfortable when she makes witty remarks. But let her grow up. Yes,
Chandan. The world will tolerate you. The world will accept you-but not

her !" (CP 348 - 349).'fie anguish of a mother who knows how a patriarchal

society will treat an intelligent girl is fully revealed in these words.
The reason for the condescending attitude to women is that men

consider women to be less intelligent than they themselves are. Psychology
supported this view for a long period of time on the basis of the smaller
size of the female brain. The average female mind was thought to be
"capricious, over suggestible, often inclined to exaggeration, disinclined to
abstract thought, unfit for mathematical reasoning, impulsive, over-
emotional" (Munsterberg 233). Though it has been since stated that "there
may be no inherent characteristics unique to the brains of either sex that
necessarily limit the intellectual achievements of individual men or
women" (Kimura 58), the earlier idea continues to prevail in most men.
The "view of the female mind as incapable of sustained attention, as

ornamental rather than logical, superficial, not deep, anecdotal not
analytical, suitable for the invention of fanciful fictions, but unable to
philosophize or to think with clarity . . ." (Reiss 14) is the popular view.

These prejudices combined with the fact that successful women were
less in number till recently, led to the propagation of the false belief that
women are intellectuaYly deficient. Most men are reluctant to cope with the
reality of women. Thus, they generalize, and a woman is either a goddess or
a seductress or a slave. Most men reduce women to mere bodies. As
Vishakha tells Yavalu'i in Karnad's The Fire and the Rain, "You think a
woman is only a pair of half-formed breasts" (16). In the male-dominated
society where men are unaware of their neglect of women as persons, it is
only natural that women should be treated as objects, primarily sexual
objects. But once the sexual needs are satisfied, the woman's functional
worth is considered. This leads to suppression and segregation of roles.
Except when the male gets attracted to the female sexually,, there is no
equality between the two sexes. The equality disappears in rape, where there
is no consent on the part of the woman. For all other purposes, the male
thinks fallaciously that the female is mferior to him, especially in intellectual
calibre. Double standards in man-woman relationships have existed since
time immemorial. Women are occluded from their own sexuality while the
libidinous impulses of men are encouraged. The biases of patriarchal society
are clearly evident in marital relationships where domestic violence often

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rears its ugly head. These double standards elevate man and suppress
woman. "The subjection of women, therefore, is brought about not by their
'natural' inferiority, but by their classification as intrinsically inferior by a
male-dominated culture they cannot avoid living in" (Ruthven 44).
However, it is heartening to note that today, there is a general awareness
among women of this suppression. One sign of this awareness is the protest
that arises occasionally.

I1
This section deals with the indications of protest seen in some of the
women characters in the plays under study. Through the ages, the woman
in Indian drama has been based on the mythic models from the Puranas
and the national epics. Sita, the silent sufferer, is considered the archetype
of Indian womanhood. There was an absence of tragedy in early Indian
drama. The characters were mainly stereotypes. The king was at all times
king, the forest recluse, an aged man with a white beard and the housewife,
a self-effacing woman honouring her husband. The theatre did not "create
its characters out of the inexhaustible supply of human individuals, but out
of the hierartic roles of the dharmic society" (Buitenen 84). In the case of a
woman character, el happy ending meant showing her as a happy,
contented housewife, subservient to her husband. Though this did not
reflect reality, the conventional pictures of man and woman continued to
appear in Indian drama.

137

However, though women were generally represented as
submissive, representations of attempts at assertion can be seen in
mythology, in the epics and in the early plays. In mythology, though Sita
is considered the embodiment of "ideal" Indian womanhood, it is an
indication of her courage that she resists the advances of Ravana. And
finally, after all her trials and tribulations, when Rama is ready to accept
her, she refuses to return to him and instead sinks into the bowels of the
earth, her mother, as a sign of protest and self-assertion. The Malayalam
poet, Kumaran Asan (1.873-1924)in his Chintavishtayaya Sita (Sita Immersed
in Thought) published in 1919, presents Sita as a self-willed courageous
woman who criticizes her husband's unfair treatment of her. ".Asan's Sita
symbolises a modem enlightened lady fully conscious of her rights and
privileges" (Narayanan 81). She is seen as a woman seeking her rightful
place in the scheme of things.

In the Mahabharcrta, when Draupadi is insulted by Duryodhana after
Yudhishtira loses her ill the game of dice, she does not suffer in silence, but
bursts out in anger and contempt. Her words reveal her realization of
herself as an individual in her own right, and not merely as a wife.

Kalidasa's Shakuntala too, protests when Dushyanta fails to
recognize her. As Waiter J. Meserve points out :

. . . Shakwtala shows that she is not at a loss in a. masculine
world of treachery. 'Wretch', she screams angrily at the king
when he condemns 'the female's untaught cunning' and

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accuses her of being 'selfish, sweet, false', as one who entices
fools. 'You1,she tells him, 'you judge all this by your own false
heart'. (421)
In the midst of the conventional women characters in Kalidasa's
plays, we also have Pandita Kausiki in the Malavikagnirnitra. She is a
widow, who is well-educated, and it is mainly due to her that Malavika is
able to marry the king. Pandita Kausiki is an assertive woman and she
succeeds in out-manoeuvring her opponents. According to
Krishnamoorthy in "'The Image of Woman in Sanskrit Literature", "The
wise Kausiki reminds us often of the sagacious Chanakya in the play of
Mudraraksasa " (114).
Though there were such glimpses of self-assertion in mythology and
in the early plays, it was rarely a sustained one. Breaking away from one's
sex-role stereotype and displaying assertiveness, overt sexuality or
intellectuality, takes on negative valuation and is considered abnormal.
"The madwoman in the attic" is soon suppressed and her screams
neutralized. Shakuntala herself bows before fate and is rewarded for her
submissiveness. "Shakuntala's story, like the stories in all Sanskrit plays
has a happy ending-happy, that is, in traditional terms of a woman's
place in society and a woman's happiness" (Meserve 422). The traditional
norms of family life and social behaviour place the Indian woman in her
home, subservient to her husband. The Indian woman remained in a state
of literary and cultural oblivion for long, till her resurgence in the early

years of the twentieth century due to a variety of factors ranging from
inspiring reformers to changes in the family set-up.

Patriarchy can be defined as "a system of social stru.ctures and
practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women" (Walby,
Theorizing Patriarchy 20). History tells us that oppression is always followed
by a counter-movement or at least a conflict. The mild rumblings of such a
conflict began to be heard slowly, but certainly, among the Indian women
too. They "discovered that they shared feelings of powerlessness and rage,
of frustration and underdevelopment, a sense of themselves as less than
whole people" (Eichenbaum and Orbach 3). Participation in t:he freedom
struggle and opportunities for education began to give Indian women an
awareness of their own strength, and a sense of being individuals in their
own right. Women thus began to rise in conflict against their own
socialized selves and (againstmen and society. Instances of this conflict can
be seen in the post-Independence Indian English drama.

Two of the traditional ways of protest by women are hysterical
outbursts and attempts at suicide. Hysteria is a method adopted by women
who acutely feel a sense of inadequacy. It usually arises in a state of
insecurity created by lack of self-confidence and self-worth. To a woman
who is dependent on her husband, the very mention of desertion by him,
leads to hysterical outbursts. It is an attempt to conceal the terror that she
feels at the prospect of her world collapsing. Hysteria has its origin in the
oppressive and domestically confined lives of women. As such, it is not a
product of femininity, but of patriarchy.

The stock response of a hysterical outburst can be seen in the speech
of Mrs. Lall in Ezekiel's "Marriage Poem". On being asked how she would
tackle the situation of her husband becoming attached to another woman,
she says: "I would tear my hair and I would tear his hair. I would scratch
my face and I would scratch his face. 1'11 shout. 1'11 scream. 1'11 raise hell"
(TP 65). According to Juliet Mitchell, hysteria is "what a woman can do
both to be feminine and to refuse femininity . . . " (" Femininity, Narrative
and Psychoanalysis" 155).

The attempt at suicide can be seen in Rita, in Currimbhoy's "The
Doldrummers". When Tony speaks harshly to her and says that he is going
to leave her, she runs to drown herself in the sea. Suicide and attempted
suicide indicate a great degree of mental distress often arising out of a state
of helplessness. Women often use suicide attempts as appeals for help and
as attempts to manipulate relationships. This is true in the case of Rita, who
perhaps hopes that her suicide attempt will revive Tony's love for her.

There are other female characters in the plays under study who
make attempts at :self-assertion. Their incendiary thoughts are soon
suppressed and they do not succeed despite the best of intentions.
However, the attempts show that they have not given up.

In Sarabhai's Two Women, "the atmosphere is one of frustration and

the attempts to overcome it by quest and aspiration" (Aiyar X). Though
Anuradha attempts to mould herself into the wife her husband wants her to
be, the setting of Act I indicates her determination to maintain her identity.
She silently rebels against the artificial atmosphere her husband wants to

141

introduce into their home. The sitting room is divided into two parts-one
side modem and western, the other old-fashioned and Indian. Her first
speech reveals her frustration-"Now it is almost as though the house had a
life of its own; and even though I want to change, it won't change with me
. . ." (4). She has never been at ease in her husband's house. In fact, her
brother, Darshan refer:; to it as "new home" (6), even though she has been
married for eighteen years. She feels comfortable only in the "Indian corner"
of her home.

Inspired by her friend, Urvashi, she decides to leave her husband
and go to the Himalayas in search of spiritual peace. She does not want
sensuous love to hold her back anymore: "This body may so easily bind

me-make my new life . . . freeze again" (73). She feels that she is a non-

entity in her marital home: "My life does not seem mine anymore! Slipping
away from my very hands; pouring out every moment, pouring into the
sand with his life-line!" (78). Her guru also inspires her to leave and find
her own space-"The birth of a child, the death of a beloved, the marriage

of a daughter. . . beating time to a woman's life. But there is another watch

by which you can keep time" (79). But then she learns that her husband,
Kanak Raya, is ill and gives up the plan. The knowledge of the imminence
of illness also changes Kanak Raya. Anuradha then says, "My Himalaya is
here, while you are here !" (121). As C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar says in the
Foreword to the play, " 'Two Women' is a notable play, not relying on
breathless incident or intricate plot but disclosing many vivid aspects of