103

CHAPTER - III

I Root My Name:
Eunice de Souza and Meena Alexander
You're mute to my bones
which strike up a river

deaf to my voice
which weaves like a mirror

This irreparable travail of ceaseless song.1

Meena Alexander

Eunice de Souza and Meena Alexander have been chosen

as representatives of the existence of specific Indian Christian

Feminism. This chapter intends to trace the specificities of

Indian Christian Feminism through their poetry. Writers and

poets of India have expressed feminist concerns about

oppression and marginalisation of women. However, it has to

be pointed out that a univocal voice of feminism would limit

or marginalise other women's voices. A homogenous voice

would not take into account class, caste, creed or other factors

which shape a woman and her experience. No doubt Christian

women in India are a part of these voices but their voice also

1 Pranab Bandyopadhay ed, Women Poets of India Op. Cit., p.64.

 104

suggest a difference and reflects a specificity which needs to

be examined.

A reading of the poetry of Eunice de Souza and Meena

Alexander will reveal this specificity and the socio-religio-

cultural oppression, resulting in marginalising of women of

the Indian Christian community. That their poetry is

structured by Christian concepts is quite obvious, since they

are born into Christian families and have had an upbringing

and schooling dominated by a Christian oriented atmosphere.

Eunice de Souza is from a staunch Goan Catholic family and

Meena Alexander comes from a family with a Syrian Christian

heritage. Their indoctrination into the religion, as all

Christians, would have begun at an early age. Christianity,

like Islam, is a very formal religion and inculcation and

training into the religion and religious concepts start at an

early age. It has also to be pointed out that the Hindu culture

would definitely have some influence on them.

Core Gender Identity

Feminist critics have pointed out that women are

bestowed with an identity not necessarily of their own making.

 105

Prescribed notions of femininity and feminine qualities like

obedience, passivity and cheerfulness are considered as

necessary for girls and women. These qualities which were

considered as womanly have been described by Nancy

Chodorow as core gender qualities. The compulsory

cultivation of such qualities is pleasing to the other half of

humanity - men. Unfortunately, most of these qualities stifle

women and do not permit or provide opportunities for any

initiative or creative activity.

Cultural reinforcement of dress, behaviour and attitude,

which are considered as norms by patristic culture,

marginalise women. Woman's inability to express the

importance of her own needs and the constant desire for male

approval to legitimise their every action consigns them to

secondary or subordinate roles. This prohibitive role creates

stereotyping and core gender attributes.

Right from childhood, girls are trained to be so and are

never allowed to forget it, until it almost becomes their second

nature. Androcentric oriented views believe that good

behaviour is a pleasure to behold in women. In the poem

 106

"Visit", Eunice de Souza recalls the compliment paid to her

feminine quality of calmness:

I like to visit you, you say,

Your always calm and smiling,
(But the visitor does not know many facts)
Should I tell I wonder,
I was a burly little girl
who knocked her sissy cousin's down?2

Gender constraints invariably compel women to search

for alternative ways of escaping from patriarchal pressures.

Smothered by cultural restraints, women learn to hide 'facts'

which they think might be unsavoury, even if it is a simple

matter as not being docile. Hence, women are considered

devious and therefore pejorative words are applied to them.

They are also considered by patriarchal structures as an Eve or

a Mary Magdalene. They are labeled and categorised as good

or bad, thus indicating their 'difference' which also serves to

encode them into stereotypes. These acts of naming can be

seen as an attempt to exert patriarchal power over women.

Most often, women and girls learn to cultivate the so-

called ' good' qualities just to keep matters running smoothly.

They find it easier to swim with the current. In "For a Child,

2Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting (Bombay: Praxis, 1988) p.

36.
 107

Not Clever", de Souza highlights the tinge of martyrdom one

can experience early in life too:

Once you thought it good

you came fifty sixth in a class
out of fifty six children.
But Mummy, you said,
fifty-six is bigger than one.
Voices crackle and break
around you. Why do you provoke
your sisters? Why do you never
tell us about your tests?
To me, the cousin who visits
sometimes, you say, as if
explaining things: I' m not clever
you see, that's why these things
keep happening.

you have pierced me with your pain

suddenly I see
how it's possible in Gethsamene
to say: I am the one you seek.
Let the rest go free.3

The poet is pained by the child's response to her 'invited'

victimisation and the willingness to assume responsibility for

her faults, de Souza immediately relates the fault or solecism

to a larger religious concept. The allusion resonates with the

association of Christ and broadens the dimension of the poem.

The figure of Christ in Gethsamene, before he is arrested and

3 Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems (Bombay: Department of

English, St. Xavier’s Publication) p.14.
 108

taken away for trial, is evoked. He does not wish His disciples

to be punished for His 7 fault'. The poet brings out the

liberating vision of Jesus Christ who did not want his disciples

implicated unnecessarily. The poet delicately balances the

tension of the two situations which are unlike and yet alike.

For the little child, the matter of her fault is as serious as it is

for Christ. Lapses in behaviour are not serious issues but

given the patriarchal expectations they are made to resemble

the sinful. The redemptive act of Christ to pay the burden of

sin is evoked.

Girls are taught qualities quintessential to womanhood.

It lies in the care of household and family, which is their major

concern. Women's responsibility lies in undertaking these

household chores and other activities. Referring to woman's

role, in comparison with man's more significant function,

Martin Luther with reference to the Genesis has written that:

The woman on the other hand is like a nail

driven into the wall. She sits at home..the
wife should stay at home and look after the
affairs of the household as one who has been
deprived of the ability of administering those
 109

affairs that are outside and concern the

State... in this way is Eve punished.4

Harking back to the biblical past has been a very

effective means to gather societal approval for tasks befitting

women. Needlework, for instance, was considered a feminine

pre-requisite and a means of keeping women busy. Meena

Alexander refers to her aunt in the poem "Aunt Chinna", who

sews:

Heaps and piles of sewing,

every tiny scrap,
she saved until the end,
samplers with little mottos
Honour thy Mother and thy Father.
Home is best
and other such sayings
the English women taught her

she could slip the needle through

and knot the cotton, so little showed.
Sometimes her silk had the sheen
of a humming bird's wing
flashing under the bent vine.5

The last few lines are a beautiful tribute to Aunt Chinna's skill

and artistry in needlework, which only women can perhaps

appreciate and value. Unfortunately, in a patriarchal world

4 Mary Grey, Redeeming the Dream: Feminism. Redemption and

Christian Tradition (Guiarat: Gujarat Sahitya Prakashan, 2000) p. 12.
5 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene: The Garden (New York: Red Dust,
1992) p.20.
 no

there is no value attached to such occupations. Most of these

tasks carried out by women are thrust into the category of

craft rather than art, which requires creativity. Meena

Alexander's aunt was probably educated by people belonging

to the Christian faith, whose zeal was to produce good wives

and mothers. The principles of this faith are also reflected in

one's occupation. The motto 'Honour Thy Father and Mother'

sewn on the samplers contain the injunction of the Fifth

Commandment handed down by Moses. The other motto that

the ideal and only place befitting women is the home is a

subtle coercion for women, thereby expressing a patriarchal

stricture. The irony is that these noble principles and

exhortations for women are also considered as inferior and

lowly tasks. These tasks have low value because in the

binaries of western philosophy of mind/body, spirit/matter,

men/women, identifying men with the mind and spirit

occluded women from the 'doing' activities. Women's

activities were considered as ' being' and hence their tasks

have little value.

 Ill

While Aunt Chinna's needlework is exceptionally good,

the same cannot be said of Eunice de Souza's efforts in the

convent school under the supervision of the needlework nun.

In the poem "Eunice", de Souza recalls an incident:

Eunice, Embroidery Sister said:

this petticoat you've cut
these seams
are worthy, of an elephant
my dear.6

de Souza's retort to this is most unchristian and unladylike.

She responds by calling Embroidery Sister a "silly bra-less

bitch."7 The immediate response by the other well-brought up

girls in the class is to complain: "Eunice is writing bad

words/sister."8

Meena Alexander's social, cultural conditioning and

training as a youngster is far more sober and becoming of girl.

She was taught all the necessary skills like cooking, music and

needlework suitable for a well brought up girl in an attempt to

settle into a well-ordered life. She recalls in the poem "Rites

of Sense":

You...

6 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 36.

7 Ibid. p. 36.
8 Ibid. p.36.
 112

taught me to wake at dawn,

sweep the threshold clear of blood-red leaves,

Taught me to fire a copper pan,

starch and fold a sari, raise a rusty needle..9.

Very often it is women who also collude with patriarchal

structures to keep women in traditional slots. While these

may appear to be the traditional occupations taught to all

girls, the last three lines of the same poem reflect a different

sentiment. Meena Alexander startles by writing:

stitch my women's breath

into the mute amazement of sentences.10

Most often women conform mutely to cultural

regulations no matter how irksome they are. Androcentric

way of life is judgmental of women and their activity and very

often it finds them inadequate. Their inadequacies result in

imposition of restrictions on their behaviour which encourage

passivity. These dynamics have impaired women in addition

to circumscribing them. Unfortunately, the Pauline text in 1

Timothy 3:11-15 recommends silence for women during church

services, which in turn resulted in effectively silencing women

9 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart (Illinois: TriQuarterly Books, 2002)

pp.71-72.
10 Ibid. pp.71-72.
 113

and rendering them voiceless even in other spheres and

situations. It is this very quality of women which also attracts

derogatory remarks. Referring to this Ellen Kennedy writes

that, "Women's (supposed) nature is used to justify her social

status, and then her actual social status is used as a

disqualification for any other status."11 They have been

rendered silent because the right words to express their speech

did not exist or were not considered anything more than mere

chatter or prattle. Their muteness has also excluded them

from history. This has led to an inequitable, strange and no-

win situation for most women, de Souza in "Women in Dutch

Painting" writes:

The afternoon is on their faces

They are calm, not stupid,
pregnant, not bovine.
I know women like that
and not just in paintings-
an aunt who did not answer her husband back
not because she was plain
and Anna who writes poems
and hopes her avocado stones
will sprout in the kitchen.
Her voice is oatmeal and honey.12

11 Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus eds. Women in Western Political

Philosophy: Kant to Nietzsche (Great Britain: Wheatsheaf Books Ltd.,
1987) p. 11.
12 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 11.
 114

Their silence defines them. Speech is always associated

with the male paradigms, while women are consigned to the

private sphere of silence, de Souza portrays very effectively a

situation which women very often find themselves in, by using

the technique of juxtaposition. She tries to capture different

levels of discursive structure - women in Dutch painting and

women in real life. The oppositions are tied and contrasted by

the poet, leaving the reader to interpret the situation. The

famous Dutch painting style of Rembrandt and Vermeer

captured the calm look on the faces of women in their

paintings. An air of tranquility permeated these paintings.

These paintings present a very calm and quiet look on the

faces of the subjects, particularly the women in the portraits.

They are not cow - like but possess an inner serenity and

composure which is reflected on their faces. De Souza uses

these painting to compare the calmness reflected in her aunt

and in Anna. Should any one think they deserve ill treatment

because they are plain, de Souza points out that they are both

lovely women. It is not feminine powerlessness that

characterises them.
 115

Serenity or composure may not always be a trait of

women. However, women are expected to be subdued and not

take initiative in any matter outside the realm of the house.

Roles for women are fixed and constant and do not permit any

variation. Patriarchal structures do not approve of any such

variation of roles. Religious and social attitudes compel

women to assume roles that presume their inability to take any

initiative. If women do so, they are viewed with suspicion and

distrust. They are definitely not expected to usurp the role of

the clergy. In the poem "At St. Anthony's Shrine", de Souza

describes the character of Alleluia D' Souza and how she irks

the clergy:

The beggars line up early,

cry unrelentingly for alms.
The faithful come bringing flowers, candles, money,
and pray for lost hand bags, lost souls, lost jobs.
Last week there was a miracle.
Alleluia D' Souza,
founder of the Shrine,
emerges at ten.
' Alleluia, Mary Gomes'
mother is dying.
Alleluia, my son found a house.
Alleluia, pray for me to St. Anthony.
Alleluia, my wife's returned.'

Alleluia stands by the Shrine door with bread

she has baked and broken.
 116

' Take my child /

she says to each,
' This is the bread
St. Anthony has given/

' May bread turn to

scorpions ' says the parish
priest. ' The people miss Mass
but not St. Anthony' s'.

The bishop says, ' Alleluia

is a good soul. She donated
a fridge last year to the orphanage.'13

Eunice de Souza has sketched a delightfully ironic

picture of the angry reaction to a common Catholic devotion.

St. Anthony is considered as the patron saint of lost things,

lost causes and a miracle worker. Tuesday is the day set aside

for devotion to St. Anthony, but it also can cause people to

become mean. Instead of being pleased at the religious

devotion of the laity it causes ill will. When ordinary people

encroach on the close-knit hierarchy of the church, priests

become unchristian and uncharitable in their remarks. A

woman stepping out of stereotype roles challenges notions of

social expectations. Women are expected to remain in the

place reserved for them. Whereas, Alleluia D' Souza takes

away the priest's initiative by running the Shrine. The priest

13 Pranab Bandyopadhay, Women Poets in India Op. Cit., pp. 47-48.

 117

is venomous in his attitude to audacious action of Alleluia

D'Souza. The bishop, on the other hand, is generous because

he is indirectly the recipient of Alleluia's benevolence. One

can easily understand why Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake

as witch.

Circumspection in behaviour and action, reticence in

speech, passivity rather than initiative is expected of women.

This mesh of propriety should not be violated under any

circumstance, especially in love. de Souza's poem "He

Speaks", reflects this stifling patriarchal attitude:

Well, now tell me

what would you do to a
woman who wrote to you
saying: You haven't written
for three weeks. You' re the
meanest man alive...
and she sends telegrams and
express letters saying it was
a joke, love, it was a joke.
I did what any self respecting
man would. I ignored her for
a week. Her pleadings wore
me down. She was an affectionate
creature and tried hard, poor dear,
but never quite made the grade.14

The note of condescension and superciliousness expressed by

the man is clearly brought out here. This poem points out how

14 Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems Op. Cit., p. 12.

 118

a woman who throws herself at a man invariably invites only

scorn and callous treatment. The man justifies his behaviour

by showing the woman in poor light which is a way of

reinforcing the idea of women's frailty and lack of consistency.

Propriety is the key word and is stressed by cultural

structures.

Appearances too are very important for women. Meena

Alexander in "Keeping House" describes the priest's second

daughter in the following manner.

she came through the kitchen door

in well starched clothes
her pleats all straight
black hair polished
wound tight in braids
about her pointed head.15

Another aspect of appearance is the colour of one's skin,

which forms part of the feminine mystique. Skin colour plays

a very important role in India especially for marriageable

girls, whether one is a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu. This

attitude to colour is reflected in de Souza's "Mrs. Hermione

Gonsalvez" who says:

In the good old days

I had looks and colour

Meena Alexander, Night-Scene Op. Cit., pp.7-8.

 119

now I've got only colour

just look at my parents
how they married me to a dark man
on my own I wouldn' t even have
looked at him..1.6

If Hermione is peeved, Meena Alexander is filled with

hurt that this colour complex can cause. In her memoir Fault

Lines, she recalls her fair grandmother Mariamma's cutting

words to her: "Look child, you are dark enough as it is. How

will you find a husband if you race around in the sun? Now

its time to stop and do a little embroidery.."17 This well

meaning bit of advice that acquisition of needlework skill

perhaps might compensate for her lack of colour never left her,

says Meena Alexander. It always left her with a sense of

confusion, as if her dark skin was a grievous fault. The

confusion prevailed even when she went to the USA where

dark women stick out like sore thumbs. In "She Hears A Gold

Flute", Alexander describes herself in the following manner:

the woman wears a sari,

under her boots

]6 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1990) p.

15.
17 Meena Alexander, Fault Lines: A Memoir (New York: The Feminist
Press, 1993) p.50.
 120

her skin is dark18

Colour of the skin matters very much in India no matter

to which community one belongs. Sometimes, it provokes

people to do unchristian things. Christian love and

compassion is given the go-by in such matters. Racism often

invites violence. More often than not, girls and women

become a target of this unmitigated hatred and phobia. In the

poem "Art of Pariahs", Meena Alexander writes about:

Two black children spray painted white

their eyes burning,
a white child raped in a car
for her pale skin ' s sake,
an Indian child stoned by a bus shelter
they thought her white in twilight.19

Women become soft targets because of their inability to

strike back. Physically and mentally they have been tutored to

remain passive. Matthew Fox, a theologian, has pointed out

that unfortunately redemption based spirituality has "put the

body down and called this regression holy... It has

substituted private righteousness for Biblical justice, it has

18 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., p.7.

19 From Book Review by Roshni Rustomji Kerns, Journal of South Asian
Literature Vol. 26, No. 1&2, (Winter, Spring, Summer. Fall 1991) pp.
370-378.
 121

taught us sin-consciousness rather than people's consciousness

of the Divine.-."20 Women's inaction and her silence has often

been dubbed as weakness. With the result, much harm has

been done to women who suffer because of the crimes

committed against them. Because of this, society has a

negative image of them.

In "Mosquitoes in the Main Room", a prose piece in the

poem House of a Thousand Doors, Meena Alexander describes

the horrific incident which roused the country out of its

slumber, if only to utter platitudes. The narrative describes

the incident of the gang rape of Rameeza Bee by policemen in

Hyderabad in 1979. Meena Alexander describes "Rameeza Bee

[who] is almost my age" caged like a koel unable to sing, mute

in pain. This incident provokes Alexander to recall the

legendary figure of Draupadi. She draws a parallel between

Rameeza Bee and Draupadi. However, the similarity ends

there. Draupadi was saved by divine intervention from shame

and dishonour. But for Rameeza, no God nor yards of

measureless sari or modern day freedom fighter saints whose

portraits adorn police stations could save her.

20 Mary Grey, Redeeming the Dream Op. Cit., p. 5.
 122

Haunted by the plight of Rameeza and countless other

helpless women, Alexander's poem "Brief Chronicle by

Candlelight" describes her lighting a candle at her door. This

action is reminiscent of the festival of lights, Divali, to

celebrate victory of good over evil, to celebrate the return of

Sita. Perhaps a day might come when women will not suffer.

But till then the situation remains grim:

Countless women, their hours lent

to pounding grain
massaging the ankles of strangers
their necks bent with bearing bricks
sticks, straw for fires that could one day consume them!21

The funeral pyre or the fire that causes dowry deaths

takes lives of scores of women. While dowry deaths may not

be a very common occurrence among Christians, Meena

Alexander's sympathy is for women victimised by their

conformity, passivity and helpless acceptance of codes of

behaviour like sati. Suffering appears to be a way of life for

women. The suffering that women undergo may be similar but

they stem from different reasons. It is this aspect which

characterises the difference or specificity in feminism.

21 Roshni Rustomji Kerns, Book Review Op. Cit., pp. 370-378.

 123

For the Christians, suffering is accepted as a part of life.

Mary Grey writes, "The lasting effect on women is that they

have been allowed to assume responsibility for suffering and

injustice: when confronted by the Christian Cross women have

so absorbed the ethic of self sacrifice and the rightfulness of

their being punished that they assume that their rightful place

was just there, on the cross with Jesus."22 Women's vocation

was made out to be self sacrifice and self suffering and hence

the victim role.

In de Souza's poem "Transcend Self", their silence and

suffering is described and brought out vividly when she

recalls what a novelist once wrote:

The perfect book is

one long cry in the dark.
A novelist said that,
who spent his life wondering why,
when the Nazis came,
his mother pushed him into a closet
and let his sisters go to Auschwitz.23

Women are often portrayed as the sacrificial lamb which

once again is a very Christian image. In the poem "An Honest

Sentence", Meena Alexander writes about Iphegenia who was

22 Mary Grey Redeeming the Dream Op. Cit., p. 13.

23 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 32.
 124

offered as a sacrifice by her father Agamemnon, to appease the

monster:

Why did he do that?

what was Agamemnon's rage?
what might have become of Iphegenia
growing older
had she survived?24

Meena Alexander is driven to ask these questions. It is

difficult to foresee what the future holds not just for Iphegenia

but also for most women who are victims. Had Iphegenia

survived, she probably would have lived with appellations

that are generally thrust on women. A patriarchal society

refuses to forgive women their past and allow them to forget

it. In the poem "Return", de Souza writes about:

Sarla Devi, Kusum Bala, Rani Devi

all of ill fame
I read your story in
the morning paper
you refuse to wear ankle - bells
worn for generations
you study law
you hear cat calls in the street
drums and bells behind your backs.
Sitting alone in a Bombay restaurant,
listening to the innuendoes of college clerks
and a loose - lipped Spanish priest,
I know something
of how you feel.25

24 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., pp.52-53.

25 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 44.
 125

Women have always been the Sarla Devis, the Mary

Magdalenes and Eves who have been labelled by a patristic

culture. Association of ill repute and derogatory comments

are common to all women, irrespective of class or community.

Only the names are likely to be Christian, Hindu or Muslim.

Casting aspersions on the character of women or character

assassination is a common pastime for men brought up in a

patriarchal culture, de Souza has been a victim of innuendos

and loose talk and hence she is able to empathise with the

Kusum Balas of India. The irony is that even a man of the

cloth indulges in this pastime, forgetting the principles of

Christianity as preached by Christ, who forgave sinners and

did not pass judgment on them. The poem brings to mind the

adulteress mentioned in the Bible (John 8:1-11), whom Christ

forgave.

However, de Souza is not intimidated or suppressed so

easily. Her codes of survival are strong. Occasionally, she

revels in the joy of getting back on men. In the poem "For S.

Who Wonders If I Get Much Joy Out Of Life", her answer is:

As a matter of fact I do.

 126

I contemplate, with a certain

grim satisfaction
dynamic men who sell better butter.
Sometimes I down a Coke
implacably at the Taj.
This morning I terrorized
(successfully)
the bank manager.
I look striking in red and black
and a necklace of skulls.26

She sees in herself a personification of strength and perhaps a

resemblance and reference to Kali is not unlikely.

On the other hand, Meena Alexander sees in her two

grandmothers, her mother, herself and other women fusing

into a woman with no name in the poem "A Note on a Woman,

Running":

I remind myself that she has no name

Neither Dis nor Demeter, neither Durga nor Kanda. 27

Women may not have any identity or individuality and

can be called by any name but their situation continues to

remain the same. This continuity is a reflection of the typical

roles allotted to her which do not permit her to deviate from

them. They have been conditioned into these sex roles which

have been assigned to them.

26 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 20.

27 Roshni Rustomji Kerns, Book Review Op. Cit., pp. 370-378.
 127

Sex Roles

Women have been circumscribed by certain roles that

seemed proper to patriarchal culture/ which played a

proprietal role. The poetry of both Eunice de Souza and

Meena Alexander delineates the sameness of roles allotted to

women in India in general and Indian Christian women in

particular. Right from childhood, women are trained

rigorously for their future roles as daughters, wives and

mothers.

Being born a woman is not easy because they have to live

up to expectations and responsibilities and also overcome

prejudices of the society and culture. In India, a girl baby is

not really a welcome addition. In "House of Mirrors" which is

a prose piece, Alexander reveals this bias in the following

lines:

Again and again the child is born each time....

She has a woman's body. She is clasped in
the fatal ring...might it be said...that she has
a female soul? Has she read the great
Sankara? Doesn't she know he has written:
"A human birth is difficult to attain, more so
a male body..2?

28 Roshni Rustomji Kerns, Book Review Op. Cit., pp. 370-378.

 128

Patriarchal culture prefers a boy to a girl because all

authority and leadership is invested in a man, be it family,

society or in religious matters. In Biblical times too, the

society was overwhelmingly masculine and male hierarchy

prevailed - husband, father, priest, prophet, king. Female

babies were less desired than boys except to continue the

lineage. In the Old Testament, Psalm 127:3-4. says "Sons are a

heritage from the Lord". But what daughters might be is

never highlighted. Thus, the inferiority and subordination of

women has been widely accepted with religious blessings.

The lines from Meena Alexander" s poem "House of

Mirrors" expresses the attitude towards a girl child who is

denied and deprived of a privileged position. There is an

open preference for a male offspring. The girl child in this

poem passes through different episodes in history and legend.

The girl child in the poem sees female characters like Deirdre

of the Sorrows and Jeanne d' Arc as women martyred to some

unfortunate lost cause. However, being born a male is

considered as an achievement. Not so for a female child who

has to experience travail.

 129

This prejudice against girls cuts across community and

race. Even among Christians there are echoes of preference for

a male offspring, even though it is not very marked. Unlike

among Hindus where a son is required to perpetuate the

family name and also to perform certain rituals for the dead,

the only reason among Christians might be to continue the

lineage. Eunice de Souza herself has experienced this bias for

a male child. In her poem "de Souza Prabhu", she expresses

the sense of hurt and pain caused by a preference for the male

child:

I heard it said
my parents wanted a boy.
I've done my best to qualify.
I hid the bloodstains
on my cloth js
and let my breasts sag.
Words the weapon
to crucify.29

If de Souza has disappointed everyone's expectation at the

time of her birth, she is an even greater disappointment as a

daughter. In the poem "Road", she writes that everyone

accused her of transforming herself into a lipstick-wearing

Bombay girl and neglecting her mother. She has thus failed

29 Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems. Op. Cit., p. 17.

 130

miserably by standards of expectation of the role as a

daughter. But Eunice de Souza protests that even the young

need to live. She describes her own relationship with her

widowed mother. She knows she has not been an ideal

daughter. The complex inter-personal kinship is described in

the poem "Forgive Me, Mother":

Forgive me, mother,

that I left you
a life-long widow
old, alone.

It was kill or die

and you got me anyway:

I was never young.

Now T m old, alone.

In dreams
I hack you.30

These lines are in complete contradiction of the commandment

' honour thy father and mother'. She knows that she may have

shocked people with her sentiments but de Souza feels

compelled to express it. This poem describes the stifling and

destructive relationship of mother and daughter, which seems

to have maimed the poet for life.

30 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p.23.

 131

de Souza describes a similar situation in the poem

"General Ward". She describes an 'undutiful' daughter's

behaviour towards her sick mother:

' Imagine, she has not visited her mother

for three days!'
' What kind of a daughter.'

Simple Christian sentiments,

simple kindly people who
plait the neglected mother's hair,
fetch her a glass of milk,
ring the bell for recalcitrant nurses.

How shall I say to them: in your simple words

I hear the subtle joy of
the guilt trip, the guilt whip?

Even the visitors in the ward,

confident in red and yellow taffeta dresses
feel their taffeta hearts go tsk, tsk.

The Neglected Mother smiles at me

to pull me into the circle of sympathy »

Women have been taught to serve others. It is a virtue

extolled in patriarchal Christian tradition. The tradition of

giving rather than receiving is a virtue that is upheld.

Therefore, religious sanctity surrounds this act of virtue.

Since women have nurturing qualities, it is but natural that

31 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p.67.

 132

they are expected to imbibe the "ethic of care and

responsibility"32 as Mary Grey phrases it.

In contrast, Meena Alexander appeared to have a good

relationship with both her parents. In the poem "Port Sudan",

she remembers her father, Kannadical George Alexander as:

my sweet father :who held me high above the waters

of the Red Sea when I was five,

And came sprinting for me

The same man loved his daughter so

he knew she needed knowledge

of the imprints of earth..33

But there were tensions in their bond of love occasioned

by the poet's brash behaviour, which she writes about in

"Elegy for My Father":

I was a loud mouthed teenager then,

I caught you at the dining table,
fists clenched.34

But Meena Alexander realises that:

I learnt to read a kindness

in your clenched fists.35

32 Mary Grey, Redeeming the Dream Op. Cit., p. 27.

33 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., pp. 10-11
34 Ibid. p. 12
35 Ibid. p. 13
 133

As a daughter, her relationship with her mother, unlike

de Souza's, is a balanced and healthy one. In the poem "Black

Water", she asks whether they are :

Two women
searching a lost parallel?
drawn by dim confusion of our blood

will the birth lines hold fast?36

Another socially determined role for women is that of

wife. Marriage is an institution that has the stamp of societal

approval and becomes a crucial event in most women's lives.

The pre-nuptial preparations are in themselves demeaning but

most women are willing to undergo them to achieve the

hallowed state of matrimony.

Marriage is considered as the ultimate destiny of every

woman. But the humiliation involved in achieving this goal is

likely to take its toll on the self-worth of women. The

preliminaries towards matchmaking cut across through caste

and creeds in India. In the poem "Marriage Are Made", de

Souza shows us to what ridiculous lengths the requisite

36 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene, Op. Cit., p. 15.

 134

formalities are carried out to approve of the prospective bride

in the Goan Christian community:

My cousin Elena
is to be married.
The formalities
have been completed:
her family history examined
for T.B. and madness
her father declared solvent
her eyes examined for squints
her teeth for cavities
her stools for the possible
non-Brahmin worm.
She's not tall enough
and not quite full enough
[children will take care of that]
Her complexion it was decided
would compensate, being just about
the right shade
of rightness
to do justice to
Francisco X. Noronha Prabhu
good son of Mother Church.37

It is ironical to note that pre-nuptial requirements extend

to marriageable girls from all communities in India. This

poem highlights the situation in the Goan Christian

community which negate the saying 'marriages are made in

heaven'. Perhaps this is why de Souza stops her title at

' Marriages Are Made'. While the onus of proving herself and

family to the prospective bridegroom, Francisco X D'Souza

37 Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems Op. Cit., p. 4.

 135

Prabhu, has no such tests to qualify except that he is a good

' catch' being a good Catholic son of the Church.

The pre-marriage ritual has been elevated to such an

unproportionate degree that marriage becomes every girl's

dream and ultimate ambition. They are made to feel that this

is the only significant event in their life. This myth has been

perpetuated by male discourse and women too have

interiorised these views. If girls do not get married they are

looked down as frustrated hags. Remaining unmarried is a

blemish to oneself and an aberration to society. As Erica Jong

remarked "But a woman is always presumed to be alone as a

result of abandonment, not choice and she is treated like a

pariah. There is no dignified way for women to live along ...

[it] is a reproach to the American way of life."38

In the poem "Autobiographical", de Souza sums up the

attitude of male postulates towards unmarried women in the

following manner:

My enemies say I'm a critic because

really I'm writhing with envy
and anyway need to get married.39

38 Erica Jong, Fear of Flying. (New York: Holt, 1973) p. i 1.

39 Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems Op. Cit., p.19.
 136

In most societies and cultures, marriage has always been

seen in terms of social legitimacy for women. Marriage is

regarded as the be-all and end-all of every woman. It is an

obligation which is imposed on her. A high price has been

placed on it because all strategies have been deployed to

sustain the myth of marriage as an obligation. In the poem

"Miss Louise", de Souza has created the character of Louise

who dreams of marriage, children and house:

She dreamt of descending

curving staircases
ivory fan aflutter
of children in sailor suits

and organza dresses

till the dream rotted her innards..4?

This is a scathing ironic view of the pressures of

expectations and the even greater destructiveness caused to a

woman's psyche. Marriage creates a false sense of security.

Very often the illusion is dispelled when marriages do not

succeed. The priest's second daughter, says Meena Alexander

in the poem "Keeping House", was:

married a sight unseen to widower

he had a green card for America41

40 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p.6.

41 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene, Op. Cit., p. 7.
 137

But when she went to America, perhaps the extreme cold or

perhaps the cold husband affected her and she started to

behave in a strange manner. The priest's second daughter:

Ripped apples free of plastic

Cut loose the pears and
Blackened oozing plums
Using her teeth in the super market aisle,
Hard to stand the shame of it
For those close to her I mean42

Perhaps, the distance caused her mind to be unhinged.

Meena Alexander can understand the reason because as she

states "But for a woman, marriages make a gash. It tears you

from your original home."43

Marriage inevitably leads to the cycle of motherhood. It

is a glorified concept and the role of motherhood was

considered the essence of femininity. It is considered as

woman's destiny. Scriptures and other works of literature

deem it woman's ultimate destiny. But what women feel about

it, is very clearly brought out in de Souza's poem "Catholic

Mother":

Francis X. D' Souza

Father of the year.

42 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene. Op. Cit., p. 7.

43 Meena Alexander, Fault Lines. Op. Cit., p. 23.
 138

Here he is top left

The one smiling.
By the Grace of God he says
We 've had seven children
(In seven years)
We' re One Big Happy Family
' God Always Provides

' Pillar of the Church'

Says the Parish Priest
Lovely Catholic Family
Says Mother Superior

The pillar's wife says nothing!44

Her silence is a site of resistance. Patriarchal discourse

generally glosses over the details of pregnancies that women

undergo over and over again, even though it is crucial to the

well being of women. In fact, it is a matter of life and death to

them. However, these details have been rendered invisible

and women continue bearing children, de Souza points out

this aspect in her poem. The irony lies in the fact that the

clergy do not seem to realise that a big happy family might be

detrimental to the health of the mother. Children are seen as

the gift of God. Even to this day the Catholic Church does not

permit abortion. The last line of the poem makes it explicitly

44
Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p. 3.
 139

clear that there is nothing a woman can say on this matter.

The mother's silence is very expressive.

Meena Alexander is more outspoken and angry in the

poem "Keeping House", with the priest who stayed in her

father's house as a tenant. The priest:

Whose wife had passed away,

Wombsucked dry by a fifteenth child.
Why couldn't he stop himself that shameless man,
Forcing himself on her.45

Despite ill health women carry on with their work. The

' angel of the house' syndrome characterises the behavior of

women. It is baffling to find that though praise is accorded to

an industrious woman in the Bible too, her work is rendered

invisible and no value is attached to it. While the Bible speaks

of equal responsibilities of wives and husbands in 1 Peter 3:1-

7, the responsibility seems to be highlighted only for women.

As wives they devote their life to the service of their husbands

and children, perhaps even more than duty calls. Most often

women set very high standard for themselves, de Souza in her

poem, "One Man's Poetry" remarks:

My mother watched by his bedside

and never forgave herself

45 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene Op. Cit., p. 7.

 140

for being asleep

the night he died.46

Meena Alexander describes her mother's life in the poem

"Reading Rumi as the Phone Rings" in the following manner:

The cloth of her life seamed with blood,

Married fifty-one years
And his breath snuffed out.47

The death of one's loved one is painful and agonising.

But certain customs and rituals related to death make it ugly

and even more difficult for widows. Hence, de Souza in the

poem "Transcend Self You Say" writes:

Friend, the histories I know aren't fit to print.

Remember Padma, widowed at seventeen,
Forbidden to see the sun for a year,
Allowed out to crap only at night
When the pure were out of the way?48

Widows have to submit to gendered impositions. Even in

the Christian community where widows are not as badly off as

in other communities in India, they still face some vitiating

circumstances. Eunice de Souza describes how this ugliness

takes place in a refined manner where a widow, her mother, is

46 Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p. 27.

47 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., p. 19.
48 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 32.
 141

excluded from the meaningful inner circle of family life. In

the poem "One Man's Poetry", she writes:

At family gatherings
My mother smiled
In her best faded chiffon.

and traveled third

with her in-laws traveling first
in the same train.49

Women are also responsible for accepting the status of

inferiority of a widow. Meena Alexander describes her

widowed mother's self- imposed incarceration:

After father died mother barely left that room,

Her head bent to the sewing machine50

A few others like aunt Chinna lose their mind. Meena

Alexander in the poem "Aunt Chinna" describes how she kept

sewing after the death of her husband. Later, she is seen as

being fascinated by mud, literally living in it much to the

shame and embarrassment of relations like uncle Paulos.

Meena's mother tells her that:

It was her mind, child.

After he died
What was left for her?51

49 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p. 27.

50 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., p. 17.
51 Meena Alexander, Night-Scene, Op. Cit, p. 20.
 142

The only alternative for women whose lives were

wrapped around their husbands is to continue with what are

often considered meaningless jobs.

The poetry of Meena Alexander and Eunice de Souza

portrays the limited and reductive roles women play like

daughter, wife, mother and may be widow. The space that

Indian Christian widows too have to function within, is

extremely narrow. It is perhaps not as cruel as the life of

Padma in the Hindu world, but it is inequitable.

Ecrit

Language is not only a means of expression for women

but a tool of resistance and a source to reclaim lost spaces. It

is a way to challenge the paradigms of male centered thinking.

In the poem "Smoke on Water", Meena Alexander displays her

way of claiming lost spaces and writes about heT pursuit:

for courage, for words

to speak to you with
who have often said to me
"we write the surface only"...52

But women writers have now learnt to delve deeper and

go beyond limited patriarchal notions about women writing.

52 Roshni Rustomji Kerns, Book Review Op. Cit., pp. 370-378.

 143

Eunice de Souza displays a candidness in her poetry to fight

against the idealised or romanticised picture of women. She

admits to flaws and warts in herself even though it might

create an unpleasant image of her. She admits in the poem

"Autobiographical":

I have muddled through several affairs

and always come out badly.
I've learned almost nothing from experience.
I head for the abyss with
Monotonous regularity

Yes, I have tried suicide.53

Even while she writes these lines she is aware that

attempting to commit suicide goes against the precepts of the

Church. On occasions she uses her poetry as self-flagellation,

as in "The Hills Heal":

Yet the world will maul again, I know,

and r 11 go gladly for the usual price.

Emerge to flay myself in poems.

The sluiced vein is just a formal close.54

de Souza's fight for survival shows that she is not a

failure. All her pent anger is exhausted and in "One Man's

53 Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p. 19.

54 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 14.
 144

Poetry" she writes: "The rage is done / My soul's almost my

own"55. However, she is in search of herself and her bearings.

In the poem "Road" she writes "I am still learning / to cross

the road."56 '

While learning to cross the road, there is also a search for

one's self. As Meena Alexander, in her poem "Indigo", writes:

I search for myself

in the map of indigo57

Her search has to be made first in the country of her birth,

India. She changed her name from Mary Elizabeth to Meena.

But she also writes in "Valley": "I have no name / I think you

know".58 On the other hand, there are others who have names,

like:

"Maria Nefeli who loves the cloud-gatherer"

I whispered
"or Draupadi born of fire
surely you are she
or Demeter even, poised at the bramble pit
where love drove her

or Sita clinging to the stone".59

55 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p. 27.

56 Ibid., p. 43.
57 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., p.34.
58 Ibid., p.39.
59 Meena Alexander, River and Bridge Op. Cit., pp.88-39.
 145

Can women with no name, identify themselves with

names of other women, seems to be the question that Meena

Alexander asks. She wonders whether it is possible to achieve

authority by belonging to none of the known personalities

because literature focuses on, particularly male protagonists

like Ulysses, King Arthur and so on. She uses historical

characters like Cleopatra, queen of the Nile; the Rani of Jhansi,

Laxmibai; legendary characters from the epics like Draupadi

and Sita; goddesses Durga and Kali; a woman poet from China

Li Ching-Chao. This might reflect a commonality in the

oppression of women. But when she uses the name of women

from different cultures it also reflects the specificities of

different nations and cultures. She draws upon the heritage of

women and interfaces them with space. Various names and

identities of women from myths and history enable her to do

this. Myths reflect human consciousness and are used to

express female experiences. This is a strategy used by many

women poets. As Jan Monteforte remarks, "Using this

material seems to be a way of at once escaping the constrictive

hierarchies of tradition and gaining access to power of

 146

definition".60 Myths help to link the present and past. Meena

Alexander also uses characters from myths as synonyms of

strength and resilience. Both her grandmothers and her

mother who are deeply imbued in Christian principles are also

sources of faith, hope and courage.

Meena Alexander's mode of resistance is not limited to

women's problems but also to colonialism and racism. She

recalls how her mother refused to sing the British national

anthem. These matters invariably affect women because of

their vulnerability in a society where they are already

marginalised. She writes in the poem "Art of Pariahs":

The Rani shall not sheathe her sword

nor Nubia's queen restrain her elephants
till tongues of fire wrap a tender blue,
a second skin, a solace to our children.61

de Souza, however does not resort the use of myth but

prefers to articulate her experiences and her pain directly.

Expressions of these experiences offer her a way to overcome

and work out a resistance. She is unable to sew a doll neatly,

like her life. In the poem "Eunice", she writes:

the limbs keep flopping

60 Jan Monteforte, Feminism and Poetry Op. Cit., p.56.

61 Poetry Review. Vol.l. No.l, (Spring, 1993) pp.58-59.
 147

the sawdust keeps popping

out of the gaps
out of the gaps
out of the gaps
sister62

Like her needlework, her life too cannot be sewn

correctly. It seems to be out of her control and there is a

desperate plea for help. Her inability to control her life is

clearly expressed in these lines. Probably, Embroidery Sister

does not have any such problems, having chosen to follow the

path of service to God. The seeming disintegration in Eunice

de Souza's life is also a mode of re-integration or

reconstitution of self, however painful that might be. In the

poem "Another way to Die", she explains:

Being eaten by maggots

is fantasy

the real thing is

to touch the outlines
of the hands, the hair
to find no body there.

in a few hours
or a few days
the bits reassemble
a breast flies back
a dull pain
where the heart should be
an ache for a touch

62 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p. 17.

 148

or a quarrel.

For a while again

you are almost
human63

Women's writings prefer not to romanticise matters as

the first two lines of the poem suggest. Reality, however

difficult or painful, is preferable. Women writers display an

openness which is refreshing and honest. Even in their

confessional poems, in matters pertaining to love, there is

directness, as Alexander says in the poem "Reading Rumi as

the Phone Rings":

He stretches out his hand to me,

Touching him I dissolve into love's elements
ash, semen, musk of mother milk.64

This is quite unlike de Souza's "Miss Louise" who could

not fulfill her dream of being married, but was not able to

mention it to any one:

till the dreams rotted her innards

but no one knew:
innards weren't permitted
in her time.65

63 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit. p. 19.

64 Meena Alexander, Illiterate Heart Op. Cit., p. 20.
65Eunice de Souza, Selected and New Poems Op. Cit., p.6.
 149

Miss Louise had to pay a price for her reticence. In later

years, Miss Louise's single status becomes the object of

ridicule. The poet writes in the same poem:

Shaking her graying ringlets.

' My girl, I can't even
go to church you know
I unsettle the priests
so completely.-."

But no one will believe me

if I tell them. It always
been the same. They' 11 say
"Yes Louisa, we know, professor's
loved you in your youth
judges in your prime."66

de Souza, herself, prefers to stay single because, as she

states in her poem "I Choose Not to Marry You, Love":

I choose not to marry you, love.

There is poison in my tongue.
I maul, I calcify. I am rib again.
I touch the world
Stars turn black holes.67

Hence, her "Advice to Women", particularly to lonely women,

is:

Keeps cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers

66 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging, Op. Cit., p.14.

67 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p.16.
 150

That stare of perpetual surprise

in those great green eyes
will teach you
to die alone.68

Her frankness and directness is reflected in most of her

poems,. She has no time or patience with patriarchal notions of

what is appropriate or not. The extreme prudery of nuns and

parents about normal biological functions come in for a

scathing attack. In "Sweet Sixteen", she brings up subjects

which were considered taboo:

Well, you can't say

they didn't try.
Mamas never mentioned menses.
A nun screamed: you vulgar girl
don't say brassieres
say bracelets.
She pinned paper sleeves
onto our sleeveless dresses69

Prejudices, false modesty, false shame about the body has

left many young girls in sexual ignorance about the functions

of their body. In the same poem, Phoebe asks her:

' Can it happen when you' re in a dance hall

I mean, you know what,
getting preggers and all that, when
You' re dancing.'

68 Eunice de Souza, Women in Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p.22.

69 Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p.5
 151

I, sixteen, assured her

you could.70

The Christian view of looking at the body as a source of

evil and therefore any biological function related to it, was not

spoken about openly and led to a reticence about it. This false

reticence about the body has left many a woman withdrawing

into herself until her identity and individuality is completely

lost or mixed up. In the poem "Brown Skin, What Masks",

Meena Alexander remarks:

No flam-flam now, card sharp, street wise

I fix my heels at Paul's shoe place for a dollar fifty
Get a free make over at Macy's, eyes smart, lip shine
Shall I be a hyphenated thing, Macaulay's Minutes
And Melting Pot theories, notwithstanding71

Meena Alexander is talking about her fractured life and

identity in the USA which has also made her street-wise.

Eunice de Souza's identity is marked by various associations,

just like Meena Alexander's. She highlights this in "de Souza

Prabhu":

No matter that
my name is Greek
my surname Portuguese
my language alien

70 Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p.5

71 Pranab Bandyopadhay, ed. Women Poets of India Op. Cit., p.6.
 152

There are ways

of belonging

I belong with lame ducks.72

But it will not always be so, she asserts. In "Songs of

Survival", she hopes that:

One day I will find my axis

and revolve around the sun.73

Patriarchal and Christian concepts may have succeeded

in subduing her temporarily but not for long. Women's

writing attempts to redeem and reclaim from submersion lost

experiences and selves. The recovery from a rebuttal by male

discourse and expression of their own voice is the redemptive

process for women writers. Women can no longer be silenced.

In her poem "Her Question", Meena Alexander writes:

There is no simple way to name it

should I frame myself against the altar
as a nail frames a painting
scarred head flat
with divine images of conception

Neither brazen priest nor painter

how should I compose this terror
into an icon?
Etch my phantasies on a marred head of nail
bent to an edge of crucifixion?74

72 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p.24.

73 Eunice de Souza, Dutch Painting Op. Cit., p.29.
74 Pranab Bandyopadhay, ed. Women Poets of India Op. Cit., pp. 46-47.
 153

The immense pressure and expectation of a patriarchal

society is expressed by Meena Alexander in these lines with

echoes and images of Christ's martyrdom. Being placed on a

cross or carrying a cross is a familiar experience for women

who are well grounded in the Christian ethic of self-sacrifice.

Keith Fernandez, points out to one of the techniques used

by Eunice de Souza's use of a persona who experiences

failures and pains. This, according to him, helps her to project

a detachment from the situation, event or episode and thereby

put on a kind of protective armour. She also uses irony and

sarcasm as a means of survival. Monique Wittig claims that

"there is enormous pressure to evacuate meaning from

language practice. We must insist on meaning and, through

sarcasm and irony make manifest what pulls in opposite

directions."75 In "One Man's Poetry", de Souza writes:

Irony as an attitude to life

is pass6, you said.
So be it, friend.
Let me be pass6 and survive.
Leave me the cutting edge of words
to clear a world

75 Monique Wittig, “Prologue to the French edition of Djuna Barnes’s La

Passion in French Feminism Op. Cit., p. 108.
 154

for my ego.76

She also uses comic irony to expose the dominating

structures of the Goan Christian community. Through naming

her experiences, she is able to break the silence she has been

compelled to keep and claim her own identity as a Christian

woman. The endings of most of her poems carry a sting to

demolish the 7 enemy' or recognised patriarchal literary views.

The unexpectedness of the concluding line in her poems is

striking and reminiscent of O. Henry's technique in his short

stories.

Patriarchal structures, whether secular or parochial, are

satirised by de Souza because religious concepts have a lot of

scope for negative interpretation. In the poem "He Speaks",

she criticises the condescending attitude that men display

towards women. In "Bequest", she writes:

Some recommend stern standards

others say float along.
He says, take it as it comes
meaning, of course, as he hands it out.77

76 Eunice de Souza, Wavs of Belonging Op. Cit., p. 27.

77 Eunice de Souza, Selected Poems Op. Cit., p.50.
 155

The clarity and understanding of patriarchal working of

the mind in situations like these inevitably results in de

Souza's variety of black humour. She also attacks the prudery

of nuns and the lack of true Christian charity and compassion.

As a Christian, she is not impervious to the underplay of

politics that exists in the Church in India, as expressed in the

poem "Varca". Some of her views on religious structures

antagonised the church authorities in India.

Directness and starkness is a method that Eunice de

Souza employs in her poetry. She rarely uses metaphoric

language or imagery, yet she succeeds in giving her poetry a

dramatic quality. Her poetry, says Bruce King, reflects not

only her Catholic childhood but "are a means to gain control

over private fears, anxieties, angers"78. Her candour and bold

pronouncement on issues like power and position reflect the

need for resistance literature to fight against male hegemony

and gender constraints.

Meena Alexander, on the other hand, uses a number of

voices, people and characters from myths, legends, history and

78 Bruce King, Modern Indian Poetry in English (Delhi: OUP, 1987) p.

157.
 156

real life too. She writes about "being born into a female

body..5?" The difficulty of occupying a woman's body in a

world where the female body becomes a site of struggle and

conflict is expressed in women's writing. Her book Fault

Lines takes a powerful look at the idea of gender through

Syrian Christian feminine eyes. She draws deliberate attention

to the plight of women and her poetry attempts to offer

opportunities for self-renewal and redemption. The women

characters in her poetry reveal inner strength, substance and

endurance. Some of the feminists, like Mary Daly, feel that the

task of naming is very important because it affirms the self

and is a mode of overcoming oppressive discourses. It is also

a step towards self-development and self-affirmation.

Meena Alexander started writing poetry at a very early

age in spite of her mother's disapproval that disclosures in

poetry were opposed to the reticence required of women.

Alexander says, her poetry deals with what her body made of

her: "female, Indian, other"80. It traces her growth as a

woman, confronting patriarchal barriers. Her Indianness plays

79 Meena Alexander, Fault Lines Op. Cit., p. 4.

80 Ibid., p. 73.
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an important role in her bearing as a woman who lives in

another country, as a hyphenated person. Her poetry draws

its strength from struggles towards equality and social justice.

She tries to make her language supple enough to express the

sufferings that might arise because of it. In Fault Lines, she

asserts that poems of resistance are poems that "voice the

body "si.

One can safely conclude that both the poets share a

preoccupation and concern about women being barricaded by

the social system which determines their actions, speech and

thought. Their poetry renders the self from where it is located

to reconstitute the self into a stronger woman. As poets

brought up in the Christian faith, they write not only within

the Christian framework but at the same time also identify

with other broader Indian feminist interests. It would be

impossible not to write as an Indian. But at the same time

they write while retaining their individual Christian identity.

Eunice de Souza's poetry reveals that her focus is on the

Goan Christian community to which she belongs. Her

upbringing clashes with received ideas and notions of the

81 Meena Alexander, Fault Lines Op. Cit., p. 128.
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Christian faith and gives her poems an unmistakable Christian

tinge which cannot be confused with women writers belonging

to other faiths.

Meena Alexander's poetry reflects the multiplicity of her

experiences in India, Sudan, the UK and the USA, where she

currently lives. This multiplicity enriches the Indian Christian

specificity. If one reads her memoir Fault Lines, the reader is

constantly made aware of her Syrian Christian background. In

Tiruvelli, where her mother lived, the strong sense of

Christianness is what made her what she is. Another aspect to

be noted is that both the UK and the USA are countries where

Christianity is the accepted religion. In Sudan, the school she

attended was a Christian school which was governed by

Victorian ideology and Christian missionary zeal which aimed

at producing model wives and mothers.

In conclusion, we can say that both these Indian

Christian poets voice their Indian Christian experiences as

women and also express their concern for experiences of other

women. Hence, de Souza writes that her experiences are "the

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common denominator of humanity."82 This chapter shows us

their personal struggle to rid the demons within them that is

revealed in their poetry. Meena Alexander wishes to overcome

her 'fractured' past, to find herself not merely as a Christian

woman but as a person in terms of language, country and self.

Eunice de Souza's struggles to escape from gender

expectations, parochial or secular, is reflected in her poetry in

order to create an authority for herself. Her struggle for self­

definition and her signature tune is amply reflected in her

poems.

Their poetry also shows that other Indian influences are a

part of their life as Gauri Vishwanathan has pointed out in her

book Outside the Fold. Yet their voices unmistakably reflect

the Indian Christian woman's feminist specificity.

82 cited by Keith Fernandez, Introduction in Eunice de Souza’s Selected

Poems Op. Cit. p. xv.