Analysis Of My Grandmother's House As Kamala Das

Kamala Das was a women much ahead of her times because of the explicitness she used in her works .In this paper attempts will be made demonstrate how the writer through her works explores and brings to the forefront deplorable state of women in the Indian society. This will be analysed by highlighting various themes like Love, Identity Crisis ,dichotomy between Self and the Other, tone of Confessional Mode, Autobiographical elements and the Bluntness with which she progresses in her work.

Keywords :,MaleChauvinism,Hierarchy,Frankness

Kamala Das is considered amongst the distinguished Indian writers who wrote variety of works and gained fame chiefly from her subjective collections of poems and explicit autobiography. Her collection of

For instance, her poetry is written at a time when the world became a witness to many waves of feminism . Therefore ,it can be safely assumed that postcolonial writings of India could have been influenced by ideas of feminism which developed around the world. Moreover, her usage of the confessional style also adds to her writings a sense of conscious awakening about ones rights. This is visible in her poem “My Grandmother’s House” where she reminiscences her childhood days and the love she received from her grandmother. The poem also is significant as she is reminded of the true love she once was fortunate to get from her grandmother. However, as one progresses through the poem one realizes that now she has to look at even strangers to search for that

The man-women relationship is the one where the man dominates as the statement cruelty states “And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly” . Besides, it seems that a female has no say of her own and she has to suppress her feelings and is expected to behave according to the men in her life. This is evident as she is made to shrink into “a bird of stone” . The very usage of the extreme word ‘stone’ ,’granite’ is suggestive of the discrimination that she has to live with. With her excellent usage of combination of the words ‘bird of stone’, granite dove’ she is also able to depict powerfully the misery that women has to suffer. This is because women like birds and dove who were born to be not only beautiful but also independent are now trapped by the beastly worldly acts as they are reduced to ‘bird of stone’ and ‘a granite dove’. The usage of bird imagery can also be seen in another of her poem with the name “The old play house” where the bird is symbolic of a woman. “ You planned to tame a swallow. To hold Her in the long summer of your love so that She would forget not the raw seasons alone And the homes left behind, but also her nature, The urge to fly and the endless pathways of the sky.” Again, clearly depicted the same idea of women who were born to be eternally free yet was tamed throughout the course of her life by the male dominated society. No wonder , K.R.S. Iyengar states “Kamala Das is a