An Analysis of Kamala Das’ ‘The Maggots’ from Russian

Formalism and Second Wave Feminist Literary

Perspectives.

Contemporary Literary Theory

Prepared by: Mithun Rozario

Department of English & Modern Languages

North South University, Dhaka
 Abstract
This paper tries to analyze the poem The Maggots by Kamala Das from Second-Wave Feminist
and Russian Formalism perspective. The formalist analysis of the poem takes a deeper look at
the linguistic features (phonological, grammatical, syntactic, and graphological) and poetic
devices used in the poem. The study investigates the foregrounding process utilized in the poem
that upholds the literariness of the piece and at the same time performs the thematic function.
The feminist reading of the poem is socially more responsible and relevant. In a male-dominated
culture, The Maggots reflects Das’ restlessness as a sensitive woman. She lifts her vigorous voice
against the tyranny of men and appears as an outspoken advocate for the emancipation of
women. Radha is the alter self of Kamala Das in ‘The Maggots.’ She has a growing sense of
revolt in her heart. Kamala Das has a deep urge to be released from male-dominated society's
clutches.

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 Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………...ii
Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………iii
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………4
1.Theoratical Framework………………………………………………………………………5
1.1. Russian Formalism…………………………………………………………………………5
1.2. Second-Wave Feminist Criticism………………………………………………………..6
1.3. Confessional Poem…………………………………………………………………………. 6
2. Biography of the Poet and General overview of the Poem…………………………………7
3. Analysis of The Maggots: Russian Formalism Perspective………………………………….8
3.1. Formal Devices, Imageries, Word Choices, Linguistic Arrangements used in the Poem….9
4. Foregrounding of the Thematic Meaning of the Poem……………………………………….9
5. Analysis of The Maggots: Second-Wave Feminist Perspective …………………….………12
5.1. The Maggots: Our patriarchal society?.................................................................................13
6. A Comparative Analysis of the Two Perspectives: Merits and Demerits…………………....14
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….15
References……………………………………………………………………………….………16

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Introduction

Kamala Das (1934-2009) is regarded as the Mother of modern Indian English poetry. Her
literary canon contains some of the best work of modern Indian literature. Though Kamala Das
never formally proclaimed herself to be a feminist, her works contain many tenets of feminism.
In a patriarchal culture, her literary works are reflections on her personal and professional
experiences as a woman and her search for love in its truest form. Her writing contained detailed
explanations of menstruation, puberty, affection, desire, experiences with lesbians, child
marriage, unfaithfulness, and physical intimacy. She introduced the idea of female sexuality to
her readers, a notion that until then was nonexistent. The poem ‘The Maggots’ is from her
second book of poetry The Descendants (1967). Love is a common or pervasive theme in Das’
poems. In ‘The Maggots’, she gives voice to age old suffering, anguish, and pain of women’s
unfulfilled love, lust, emotional bonding, and sexual desire in a patriarchal society. The images
and other literary devices used in the poem are dark and stony; which complements the overall
tone of the poem- the languishing sighs that cloaks the true feelings of women in a ‘man's
world.’ (Haider, 2010)

1.Theoratical Framework
1.1. Russian Formalism
Russian Formalism emerged around 1915. The literary school flourished in the 1920s. It is
associated with the OPOJAZ (Society for the Study of Poetic Language), the Moscow Linguistic
Society and Prague Linguistic Circle. The concept of ‘form’ is closely associated with Russian
Formalism. The Russian formalists emphasized on an objective study of the form of a literary
work and gave less importance to the ‘content’ (Eagleton, 2015).

The Russian formalism is based on the concepts of verbal qualities of the literary text where the
meaning is derived from the arrangement of the words and literary devices applied in the text.
Moreover, the concept of defamiliarization and foregrounding makes us see the literary artifice
construct its own reality (poiesis) by deliberately avoiding mimesis (imitation) of ordinary and
commonplace reality.

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The Russian formalists gave emphasis on the “formal devices’’ of the literary works. They
analyzed the rhyme, rhythm, meter, syntactic structure, phonological, and morphological
patterns, the narrative technique and the figurative language such as the use of metaphor, simile,
etc. According to the proponents of Formalism, literature or literary works are special uses of
language and differ from the practical or ordinary language. Literary language is a reflection of
its own self and thus it provides the audience with an experience drawing attention to the formal
devices or tools that are used in it. The practical language deals with the function of
communication in everyday life. Roman Jacobson terms the nature of literary language as
‘literariness’. (Eagleton, 2015) The literariness of a given literary work makes it a literature.
Similarly, Mukarovsky suggests that the literariness occurs from the maximum foregrounding of
the utterance. Leech opines that literature is significant because of its special use of the language.
Literary works foreground their literariness by drawing attention to the special use of language;
how the message is conveyed rather than the message. Poetry does it by the use of metaphors,
simile, alliteration, rhyme, etc. these literary devices draw attention to itself. (Leech, 1969).

Foregrounding is realized by linguistic deviation and linguistic parallelism. One of the primary
aims of foregrounding in literary works as suggested by Russian Formalist Shklovsky (Art as
Technique) is to defamiliarize, deformed, or estrange the ordinary language. Literature makes us
aware of the contrived, dramatic, and literary use of the language. We are generally habituated at
looking at things of the world as they are. When the literary language dramatically presents the
world to us; our worn out and habitual perceptions are refreshed. We see and hear the things of
the world in a new and more perceptible manner. The Formalists argued that our traditional
assumptions are 'defamiliarized' in the process of reading, objectivized to the point that we can
critique and therefore rewrite them. When we change the text by our reading techniques, it
modifies us at the same time: it will return an unexpected response to our 'questions' like objects
in a scientific experiment. For a critic like Iser, the entire point of reading is that it takes us into
greater self-awareness, catalyzing a more objective understanding of our own personalities. It's
as if that's all. It is as if what we have been 'reading' is ourselves, making our way through a
book. Thus literature can give us a broader and new understanding of the world. Some Marxist
critics and proponents of Reader Response theory, opposed the dichotomous view of Russian
Formalists regarding the ordinary language and literary language. (Eagleton, 2015)

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An analysis of The Maggots from the perspective of Russian Formalism shall give me a scope to
better understand the use of poetic devices and their workings in making the poem a functioning
system in itself.

1.2. The Second Wave Feminist criticism

A Literature of Their Own (1977) is the groundbreaking book by Elaine Showalter that
introduced the concept of gynocriticism. The Second Wave Feminist criticism has its foundation
in Gynocriticism where the emphasis is given to women’s experience of sexuality, sexual
difference in a male-dominated society, and sexual oppression. The feminists of this wave
celebrate the biological attributes of women, henceforth downplayed by the patriarchal society.
(Eagleton, 2015)

There are three major facets of gynocriticism. It explores the role and contribution of female
authors in literature and culture, assesses the representation of female characters in male and
female writers' literary works, and, most particularly, examines female writers and their place in
literary culture. The second is the recognition of both male and female authors of the portrayal of
female characters in novels. The finding and discovery of a canon of literature written by women
is the third and most important element of gynocriticism; gynocriticism aims to fit a female
literary heritage. Showalter (2009) suggests the following three stages of female writing in A
Literature of Their Own:

The 'Feminine' Phase- feminist authors tended to stick to masculine ideals in the feminine phase,
written as men, and typically did not get into conversation about the role of women in society.
During this time, female authors also employed male pseudonyms.

The 'Feminist' Phase- in the feminist process, the questioning of the role of women in society and
the injustice of women was the core focus of works by female authors.

The 'Female' Period - feminist authors were no longer seeking to assert the authenticity of a
woman's experience during the 'female' phase. Rather, it was thought that a female writer's works
were genuine and legitimate. The female phase lacked the feminist phase's rage and combative
awareness. (Showalter, 2009)

1.3. Confessional Poem

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Confessional poetry is a style of writing originated in the late 1950s and early 1960s and is
popular with poets such as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton. Confessional poems
are subjective. The confessional poets introspect, self-explore, self-analyze, and bare it all in
their writings. In the process they are candid, straightforward, bold, and unreserved in the
traditional setting.

In the mid-20th century the confessional poets mainly dealt with themes and subject matters that
were groundbreaking in the American poetry. In this style of poem, private encounters with and
thoughts about death, trauma, grief and relationships have been discussed, sometimes in an
autobiographical way. The poets gave importance to the artistic expression and overall
construction of their poetic work besides baring all their naked emotions on the paper. Kamala
Das is mainly a confessional poet, and she can be seen in this sense as an excellent Indo-Anglian
poet equivalent to American poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (Jamal, 2020).

2. Biography of the Poet and General overview of the Poem

Kamala Surayya Das (1934-2009), was an Indian English poet from Kerala, India. She wrote in
Malayalam too. Her fame in Kerala is primarily focused on her short stories and explicit
autobiography. Kamala Das was an iconoclast. She was free from every sense of shame and her
open and frank treatment of female sexuality filled her writing with strength and gained hope for
feminine liberation. In 1965, she wrote her first book of poetry, The Summer in Calcutta. The
bold, assertive, and explosive writing was the first of its kind to discuss women's body politics
and identity. These poems have actually influenced more feminist poetry today than any other
Indian poet ever could. The poems erupt with truths with subtlety, and artistic beauty. The poem
‘The Maggots’ is from her second book of poetry The Descendants (1967). Love is a common or
pervasive theme in Das’ poems.

‘The Maggots’

At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna

Loved her for the last time and left...

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 That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt

So dead that he asked, What is wrong,

Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,

No, not at all, but thought, What is

It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

[from The Descendants]

The poem begins in media res. It’s evening and at the river bank, Krishna makes love with
Radha one last time and leaves. The narrative goes on to what happened in the night. Radha’s
husband wants to make love with her. But in his arms Radha feels so dead that his kisses feel like
maggots on a corpse. It hardly mattered to Radha who was already dead to any love. After
Krishna had left Radha became dead to any love. The kisses were just maggots on her corpse.
Did the corpse feel the maggots nipping it?

3. Analysis of The Maggots: Russian Formalism Perspective

The formalist analysis of a poem is made under the following linguistic levels: (Batool, 2016)

● Phonetic level: at the phonological level we need to examine the sound patterns in the
given text, their characteristics and how the sounds are utilized to achieve specific
function in the poem.
● Phonological level: At the phonological level we analyze the rhyme, rhythm, meter,
stress, and so on that makes the overall sound system in the given poem.
● Graphological level: It is the analysis of the rules of spellings, use of punctuation,
capitalization, font style; break down of stanzas, etc. or any deviations from the normal
conventions in the poem.
● Grammatical level: here we analyze the syntactic and morphological features or levels in
the poetic text. The goal is to study the internal form of sentences and in what order they
function in the literary text. In order to figure out the foreground and the deviations;
sentences, clauses, phrases, words, and lexical categories must be differentiated and
examined.

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 ● The lexical level: It is the study of how individual words and sentences, in various
linguistic contexts, fall together in different patterns. A stylistic analysis of literary text at
the lexical level helps to examine whether our original understanding of the poem was
correct or incorrect, as the deeper thinking of real analysis often gives us a new
perspective that you may not have in the beginning.
● The linguistic schemes and tropes or literary devices, imageries, etc. used in the poem.

3.1. Formal Devices, Imageries, Word Choices, Linguistic Arrangements used in the Poem

Phonological level: at the phonological level, we shall look at the sound pattern, rhyme scheme,
and meter in the poem The Maggots.

Rhyme Scheme: The poem has an unusual rhyme scheme. It is irregular. If we analyze the final
words of each line, the poem rhymes as abbcdef.

The poem has a total of seven lines. They are mostly irregular with one rhyme and one half
rhyme.

Loved her for the last time and left…(b)

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt (b)

Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said, (d)

Left and felt is in full rhyme; whereas left, felt and said are in half-rhyme.

Meter: the closest meter used in The Maggots is iambic tetrameter. In the poem four beats of
one unstressed syllable is followed by one stressed syllable.

At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna

Loved her for the last time and left...

Graphological level: The poem The Maggots has two stanzas. The poem has a total 21 lines.
Das’ syntax is inventive enough to interrupt the plodding flow and define the time-lapse to the
reader, using punctuation and diction.
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The poem has use of caesura or pauses in lines caused by punctuation. The reader has to pause
after the end of the first stanza that dissolves in ellipsis or a set of three dots (...)

Loved her for the last time and left…

The use of commas, question marks before the monosyllabic answers all set the pause and
hesitant tone of the poem.

Grammatical level: The grammar, with multiple commas and sub-clauses, is complex and
archaic. Each query asked by the speaker often has a propensity to slow down the reader, which
deepens the reluctant speaker's cautious contemplation about love and passionate absorption of
two beings.

So dead that he asked, What is wrong,

Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,

No, not at all, but thought, What is

It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

Poetic devices/ Schemes and troops in the poem: Schemes and tropes are poetic devices used
to create a particular style in the poem. Tropes are figures of speech having meanings different
from their literal meanings. Whereas schemes are figures of speech that deal with letters, word
order, syntax and sounds rather than the meaning of the word. (Childs & Fowler, 2006)

Alliteration: alliteration is a stylistic device consisting of the repetition of the same consonant
sound in nearby words. (Childs & Fowler, 2006)

Example of alliteration in The Maggots:

No, not at all, but thought, What is

Metaphor: a metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing
by mentioning another. (Childs & Fowler, 2006)

...What is

It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

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In the most powerful final verse of the poem the poet metaphorically invokes the idea of
"unfulfilled love" with the speaker positioning herself as the dead body or corpse and her
husband as the maggots eating the lifeless body.

Synecdoche: It is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole. In the poem
"Do you mind my kisses, love?" here "love" is used to represent Radha and his lover as a whole.
In the verse, “That night in her husband's arms,” ‘arms’ is used to represent Radha’s husband in
the act of love making.

Imageries: the images used in the poem are deep and powerful. The love between Radha and
Krishna is ideal - pure love. This love transcends the carnal lust and bodily pleasure. Krishna is
the epitome of the self, the inner truth, beauty and love within. Radha is the goddess and even
she ironically is at a position of longing for pure love in a male-dominated society. The image of
Maggots symbolises the self-obsessed men lustily desiring only the flesh and the corpse
represents the voiceless and subordinate women anguishing in the patriarchal society.

The narrative style: The embraced narrative style is beautiful. The first two lines deal tersely
with the events that transpired before the next stanza unfolds, which is about the act of love
between Radha and her husband. A preface to what the poem in the next stanza talks about is the
first two verses.

The ensuing incident of love making between Radha and her husband is dealt with a dialogue
form and not in third person narration:

what is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses,love?

And she said

No,not all.

(but thought)

What is it to the corpse if the maggots nip?

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The idea of maggots nipping Radha’s corpse takes place in the mind of Radha. She, henceforth
only responding to her husband in monosyllabic lines, doesn’t voice her thoughts out loud but
suffers the pains of unfulfilled love.

4. Foregrounding of the Thematic Meaning of the Poem

In The Maggots, the central theme is the search for true love and pain of unfulfilled desires. Love
that flourishes and thrives in a body is bound to wither with it, and in a world of philanderers, the
search for true love is a vain activity. Therefore, the quest for human love transforms to love for
the immortal, i.e., "Lord Krishna." Krishna, as Sudhir Kakar remarks, encourages the individual
to associate with an ideal primitive self, freed from both social and superego, in psychological
terms. Radha is disdainful of her husband, who seeks only the love of her body. The poem
"Maggots" embodies the reality of Radha with her husband, similar to the poet's plight. Radha
does not experience love in her husband's arms, but remains like a corpse and an indifferent wife
(Bhasin, 2013).

How the central theme is foregrounded in the poem:

According to Halliday, foregrounding is "The phenomenon of linguistic highlighting, whereby

some features of the language of a text stand out in some way," (Halliday, 2002).

Foregrounding is a linguistic method of drawing attention to certain language features. This

technique moves the focus of the reader from what is said to how it is said.

In ‘The Maggots’, Das has used phonetic pattern, rhythmic style, grammatical and poetic tropes
or devices to foreground the central theme of the poem: the suffering caused by unfulfilled love.
The syntactic or unconventional grammatical pattern, use of powerful images, and metaphors in
the lines below is an example of foregrounding of the central theme drawing attention to the
special use of language (literature).

Loved her for the last time and left...

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt

So dead....

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 No, not at all, but thought, What is

It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

Moreover, the poem has use of ellipsis, alliteration, question mark that foregrounds the theme of
‘The Maggots.’

5. Analysis of The Maggots: Second-Wave Feminist Perspective

From a feminist perspective, the poem helps us realize the traumatic experience that the women
experience in a male dominated society; where the women can’t voice their desires about love
and body. She portrays a dichotomy of pure-eternal love and sexual or carnal love. She candidly
portrays the unfulfilling nature and futility of physical love that seeks only lust and bodily
pleasures. Her own traumatic and agonizing personal experience as a woman in a male-
dominated society furnishes her poetry with powerful images and gives voices to many women
who languish in the chauvinistic society.

In ‘The Maggots’, Das chooses the divine figures of Radha and Krishna as the personas. The
person of Krishna stands as the image and epitome of true love. Rasha feels total love and
freedom when she is with Krishna at the river bank. However, when later that night she is in the
arms of her husband, she feels like a corpse. The kisses on her body feels like the numbness of
the maggots nipping and eating out dead flesh. But, Radha doesn’t say a word to her husband.
She feels dead and thinks the disgusting image of maggots eating out her corpse. She desires a
merger with her truer self for total liberation. Only the truth can rouse the ideal feelings of love.
The true self is Krishna himself. Radha’s husband is still engrossed in self-ego and is only after
Radha’s body. He is filled with lust and secual desires. Radha wants the ideal love and doesn't
crave or has any feelings for carnal love.

Radha's agony is searing, and Das gives voice to her silence. In addition, it acts as a validation
for all females to have similar feelings by rendering a mighty goddess prey to such emotions.
Her unfulfilled passion, lusts and sexual bouts, pain and torment, sterility and inner emptiness,
sadness, and death are depicted in the images of the human body, sexuality, corpse, maggots, and
the myth of Krishna and Radha. (Behera, 2012)

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The rare audacity of Das applies to her pursuit of femininity and love. She dared to talk honestly
about her deep inner feelings and sexual desires in a patriarchal society where women are
abused, which was unusual in an Indian setting. Her poems eventually become autobiographical,
and this gives her poems a kind of sincerity.

In a male-dominated culture, Das' poetry reflects her restlessness as a sensitive woman. She lifts
her vigorous voice against the tyranny of men and appears as an outspoken advocate for the
emancipation of women. She writes poetry to fight against an orthodox, traditional culture, using
it as a shield (Behera, 2012). She has much to say about the pathos of a woman to the point of
finding and asserting her human rights and freedom, arising from a passive position. The
monosyllabic responses of Radha in the arms of her husband has a tone of resentment and
indignation. This reflects her sense of revolt toward the ill-found social order. She is a forceful
and vehement feminist.

Radha in ‘The Maggots’ has a growing sense of revolt in her heart. She has a deep urge to be
released from male-dominated society's clutches. But Radha has to assert her will and a spirit of
vengeance to be exemplary to the multitutde of weaker sex to rise up in rebellion against all sorts
of tyranny and repression inflicted upon them.

5.1. The Maggots: Our Patriarchal Society?

Silence and subordination are shared experiences of women in a patriarchal society.

In Kate Millet's Sexual Politics, the word "politics" refers to "power-structured relationship
arrangements whereby one group of individuals is controlled by another". Political power is
exerted by men through Sexual dominance. In any male chauvinist society, the relationships
between the sexes, is that of dominance and subordination. Men often consider that it is their
birthright to rule the women and even have complete possession or dominance over the female
body. Such a mindset is often largely unexamined and even unacknowledged in our social order
(Spivak, 1988).

Meanwhile, marital rape is an unrecognized type of sexual abuse unleashed on women and,
sadly, even on children. Hundreds and thousands of women are coerced by their own husbands
to suffer abuse. A patriarchal culture refusing to behave in its best interest is symptomatic of
sexual harassment against women. This is because of a lack of empowerment of our women. We

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live in a culture that, unfortunately, still treats a woman as an entity that, sexually and otherwise,
can be controlled. And it is by this male superiority complex that men exert their strength and
ego over the women.

6. A Comparative Analysis of the Two Perspectives: Merits and Demerits

i) Russian Formalism

Merits Demerits

Gives an in-depth understanding of the A formalist analysis of the poem does not
architecture or structure of the literary piece. have any social relevance or value.

Helps us realize the use and technique of

linguistic usage of language to express
meanings.

Helps us understand the relationship between

forms and functions in the literary use of
language.

Helps us appreciate- how literary form

complements the thematic meaning.

ii) Second Wave Feminist Criticism

Merits Demerits

A feminist reading of the poem is a socially The feminist reading doesn’t help us
responsible task. appreciate the literariness of the poem.

It is more appropriate to understand the poet’s We don’t get any idea about the form, literary
contextual rendering of the theme of the devices, and their functions from a feminist
poem- the male domination and sub-servient reading of the poem.
nature of women.

The feminist reading is relevant and honest.

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Conclusion

Kamala Das has an obsession for seeking true love, meaning and certitude in life. These
obsessions have led her to explore the nature of male-female relationship, sex, lust, and carnal
desires in a patriarchal society in the poem The Maggots. The feminist reading of the poem is
more relevant and socially responsible in a patriarchal society like ours. The formalist reading of
the poem on the other hand helps us appreciate the literariness of the poem. We can get an in-
depth knowledge of the linguistic features, schemes and devices used in the poem to achieve
specific functions.

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Bhasin, S. (2013). Pragmatic Analysis of Kamala Das Poetry. IOSR Journal of Humanities and
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Childs, P., & Fowler, R. (2006). The Routledge dictionary of literary terms. Routledge.

‌Eagleton, T. (2015). Literary theory: an introduction. Blackwell Publishing.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. (1988). In other worlds: essays in cultural politics. Routledge.

Haider, N. (2010). Reading “The Endless Female Hungers”: Love and Desire in the Poems of
Kamala Das. South Asian Review, 31(1), 277–306.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2010.11932741
‌Leech, G. N. (2016). Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. Routledge.

‌Jamal, N. V. (2020). ‘Impersonal Personalism’: Kamala Das as a Confessional Poetess. Shanlax

International Journal of English, 8(3), 31–33. https://doi.org/10.34293/english.v8i3.3189
M. A. K., Halliday, & Webster, J. (2002). Linguistic studies of text and discourse. Continuum.

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