Professional Documents
Culture Documents
11 - Chapter 5 PDF
11 - Chapter 5 PDF
Chapter – 5
me, who does not doubt my courage, or my toughness, who does not
home and work. During Neolithic Era, woman was treated as an equal
to man. She gathered food like grains, nuts, roots and lentils and men
She made pottery and grinding the corn as some of the daily activities
apart from raising her children. In Bronze Age, woman was seen as a
centre figure and made her husband realize her importance either in
at home. During Iron Age, she was skilled and talented in making
bread and cheese and drying up meat and fish under the sun. Taking
care of livestock was more important task for woman during this era.
the society. She becomes the property of her husband after marriage
facilities were very poor and many women died at a very young age in
childbirths. She was just like an instrument being used by man since
supported and that there is equality in every aspect, and that it’s not
two halves that make a whole, it’s two wholes that make a whole.”95
is portrayed as the ‘Holy Mother’ where she treats both as her children
Dervin has rightly said that “Candida… is the Virgin Mother and
Theatre, London in 1897 and was published in 1898. This play echoes
with ‘Madonna and Child’ concept as Mary with her child Jesus takes
care in every detail, likewise Candida with her two children: Morell
taken from the Voltaire’s novel Candide published in 1759, who is the
who cares for both of them equally, clean in her actions; decides to
choose her husband who is the weakest of the two and above all pure
optimist as well, who at the end of the play resorts to a simple living
with farming and hard work and sees life in a positive and assuring
care.
higher note. This play speaks about the freedom of woman: at home or
in society.
salvation and liberation from narrow and skeptical society. This play
many centuries, she did not forget her admiration towards her
husband and society in India. This play narrates the ideals of woman
commodity in the society. This play has won Sahitya Akademi Award
Woman, who breaks her silence and gets on to create her new world
with her own courage. The Indian society has the stench of ailing
marriage she lands herself into the middle of nowhere and delusions
haunt within her heart for the rest of her life. Jaya is the protagonist
changes his attitude towards his wife Jaya and starts hating her for
man cannot reach his wife completely except through her body,
shatters his mind to an extent that he shuns her from his life. Mohan
or in her career as a writer. He sees the guilt in her as if she has done
making him strong to recognize his ideologies over her as Jaya took
her world in her own hands to change her husband’s gloomy ideals
establish her own identity in the society. Candida on the other hand,
113
reason and may be, Candida is fed up with the behaviour and life
style of her husband Morell, and she wants to envy Morell through
Marchbanks, to realize Morell about the love and affection she has for
traditional wife who understands him and takes care of house hold
chores. He even changes her name to Suhasini, which means soft and
better than we are, marriage will have to go, or else the nation will
writing the piece of her own inner self, builds to regain her identity
without her husband for sometime but feels lonely and alienated. She
revolts in her silence against her husband and the society to establish
a new horizon for a better tomorrow and convinces her heart to live up
the life in sorrow as the phoenix rises from its ashes for a new
beginning. Candida too builds up a new life even after their twenty
years of marriage in a new twist and of course making the bond even
Indian psyche adores the old tradition with old ethics to brighten up
114
her family with old lantern: perhaps the consumption of paraffin oil is
wishes to return to her abode with much aspirations and new life.
Jaya, even though she was tortured mentally by her husband, comes
back to her husband when he writes to her about his visit. She does
not want to shatter her life just because of her blunders, as she
brushes away the conventional and orthodox way of living, making her
own destination without much zeal in her personal and marital life,
Shaw says, “The central note of the play is that with the true
heart that twines emotions with responsibilities and the tears from
eyes with passion and anxiety to embody the incessant shower of love,
… have small delight in poetry, but are the stuff of which poems and
his weakness, the poet pitiful in his physical impotence but strong in
challenged to rival.”100
intoxicating pill every reader takes while reading the play. She belongs
115
her life. She has a single thought of her home and displays all the
expose the basic womanhood for her husband, children and society.
mere poems and infatuation, where the words and rhythms of poetry
glitter, but not life. She shows the virtual world behind the dreams
to a point with her charm in her wit and makes Morell realize that he
happy man. He is, after all, a handsome, sought after public speaker
and a successful minister. The fact that his readers are mainly
is, at bottom, every bit romantic as a poet, but Morell’s passion takes
would also be a bit too much, were he not restrained by the humbling
116
example of the Social Gospel, and the pomposity and the pricking
ways for six shillings a week less than she used to get in a
says:
….I have grown fonder and fonder of him all the time I
(Act I, P.564)
Shaw dealt only with that, Candida would be noteworthy, but he does
shining exception, and Shaw’s admiration for women often led him to
117
place them on pedestals, and that is certainly the case with Candida,
known more for Shaw’s political oratory than his religious rhetoric.
understanding her:
everything for the sake of her beloved husband. But Candida here sets
herself for auction and asks them to offer their bidding. She says:
Both men want her and Shaw here sets up the moment when
Candida cuts through the male scrapping with icy clarity. The two
until finally the husband realizes that she is the stronger of the two.
She is Queen of the house. Both the men forget that she belongs to
family’, and shows a weak man and a strong man, each at first
finally clings to the weaker, as he needs her most, not, Shaw implies,
that he is lost. On the other hand, Morell droops down with sorrow at
the outset, later when Candida says Morell is weaker of the two, he
recovers from the shock and feels happy. Here Candida justifies
herself as a true wife to her husband. She pretty well knows that it is
Morell who is longing her from his heart, but he could not express it
due to his futile approach and weak mind-set. She makes him the
not know it and could not tell you a moment ago how it
Candida, indeed does not like this as her conscience pricks and
acquires ‘gift of the gab’, a skill obtained to flatter others, he could not
He says:
amusing, and it is the tiniest bit too much which is just right. His
behaviour is a kind of first draft of a poet’s love affair and gets the raw
impulse out now, cleans up the style, and regularizes the meter later.
Marchbanks comes out with the truth that he has fallen in love with
Candida:
husband and wife have taken under wing, begins the romantic
121
men think they know about the women in their lives, or about
themselves, for that matter. Morell has not taken care of any
expresses the horror that has haunted his heart, bursts out poetically
before Candida:
away in, far from the world, where the marble floors are
carry us up into the sky, where the lamps are stars, and
(Act I, P.558)
poems and it has awakened him because he’s been much neglected in
She offered me all I chose to ask for; her shawl, her wings,
the wreath of stars on her head, the lilies in her hand, the
Candida. The situation demands the respect for marriage that it has
about her. But he is in love with a woman who is older to him and has
attitude of the lovesick poet, and declares that Morell doesn’t deserve
Marchbanks redeems his love for a more matured man who can
manage Candida well and asks her lover’s husband to search a better
the real typical doll’s house it is the man who is the doll, and, indeed,
Candida, Marchbanks tells Morell that he has filled her heart with his
happiness. He says:
I love you because you have filled the heart of the woman
really is, and that it is her role to point out to him that marriage
chores and responsibilities due to the façade of time in his marital life.
The author too puts his thoughts through this character to evaluate
Morell and Mr. Burgess, the father of Candida are minor characters
for Candida, Morell tells him that it has become a common feature for
(Act I, P.541)
until Marchbanks, a fervid and callow poet, met the clergyman’s wife.
Morell says:
without any clues about the sensitive situation within his own
Oh, you fool, you fool, you triple fool: I am the man,
woman is send for her, Morell: send for her and let her
suspicions. I will not live with you and keep a secret from
declaring their undying love and tell them both that they are acting
like little boys.”105 Shaw sets the heroine a real challenge in his
offers:
127
It’s hard to imagine why Shaw said that marriage “is an alliance
entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a
woman who can’t sleep with the window open,”107 as Singh marks it,
fascinated with it, Shaw was, and the crackling energy of much of his
dramatic work comes from the tension between husband and wife.
fanatical art.
“the poet has no business with the small beer of domestic comfort and
Eugene probably eventually discovered that “he had to keep his feet
married him and made him dress himself properly and take regular
There were two stalwarts who brought a new hope for women
Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill are the two crusaders who
1799), especially the rise of women for their basic rights. She wrote
should acquire her right; equality to men, right to educate: not until
the age of eight, but till she desires, stance in politics where women
“… women are brought up as they are, a man and a woman will but
129
daily life… dullness and want of spirit are not always a guarantee of
case does the man obtain it, except an upper servant, a nurse, or a
changed the mind sets of domineering men and gradually these men
west by clothes.”114
The Indian feminists were much there to fight for the women’s
the first phase starts from 1850 to 1915, second phase from 1915 to
1947 and third phase from post 1947 onwards. The first phase
advocates uproot of sati: widow immolation. This has been the main
context of this period and Raja Ram Mohan Roy during eighteenth
130
fought for the property inheritance to women and against social evils
as the dreadful inhuman act of the world. Kamini Roy born in 1864
was the leading Bengali feminist and poet, social worker and the first
organization in India during the British Raj. Both women fought for
female education all over India. Education was the right of men;
schools and colleges were meant only to the male dominated society
and were treated as the supreme over female society. Women were
The second phase was a watershed for women. This phase gave
a scope to intensify the claims and agony for the rights. Under the
born in 1909 in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh felt the need for female
possible way. The third phase fought on unequal wages for women,
focused on equal pay for both women and men as per the Indian
Constitution. She even cared for the education system and catered the
Jasodhara Bagchi, Prem Chowdary and many more had put their
souls in upbringing the girl child and women’s rights for spearheading
As Pauline Reage has rightly said that “Woman ... is the divine
object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy,
with power on her side for a better tomorrow. She makes the readers