BAEG 10 Block 03

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The contents of all the units in this block have been

taken from various open source websites and a few parts
have also been taken from ‘e-PG Pathshala’ with due
referencing and acknowledgement. The link to those
sites have been mentioned in the “Suggested Readings”
section at the end of every unit.
BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) IN
ENGLISH (BAEG)
BEG-10
Women’s Writings
Block-3
Women’s Poetry
Unit-1 Introduction to Indian English Poetry
Unit-2 Kamala Das and Her Poems
Unit-3 Sylvia Plath and Her Poems
Unit-4 Eunice De Souza and Her Poems

UNIT-1 INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ENGLISH
POETRY
Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 History of Indian English Poetry
1.3 Poetry of First Phase
1.4 Poetry of Second Phase
1.5 Major themes dealt in Indian English Poetry
1.5.1 Pre Independence Poetry Themes
1.5.2 Post Independence Poetry Themes
1.6 Contribution of women to Indian English Poetry
1.7 Lets sum up
1.8 Unit end questions
1.9 Suggested Readings
1.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit, you will be able to:

 Get a broader idea of Indian English poetry.
 Analyse the greatest poets that have made their independent places in the
history of poetry.
 Know about the prominent female poets who strived their ways despite of all
odds and made a prominent name.
1.1 INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY: AN INTRODUCTION
Indian English Poetry is different from the western counter parts in its theme,
language, style of writing. The writer also wrote for the Indian audience, so it ought
to have an Indian appeal which was likeable to all, for them the feature of Indianess
made it exotic and gave a deep feeling and experience of real India. The best that a
poet could hope to do was to try to be as natural and as honest as possible and to
concentrate upon the poetical enrichment of material and also not to be content with
decorative use of Indian imagery. The nativeness being the prime factor of literary
communication, an Indian writer inadvertently communicates Indianness.
1.2 HISTORY OF INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY:
Poetry is the expression of human life from times eternal. India Infact has a long
tradition of arts and poetry from ages. Colonialism gave a new language, English for
the expression of Indians. The poetry written by the Indians in English in the last 150
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years may be said to have three phases: the imitative, the assimilative and the
experimental. The period from 1850 to 1900 is the imitative phase when the Indian
poets were romantic poets in the Indian garb or in George Bottomley's words
"Matthew Arnold in a saree" or as some derogatively observes "Shakuntala in a
mini-skirt". The chief sources of inspiration were the British romantic poets:
Wordsworth, Scott, Shelley, Keats, Byron. The period from 1900 to 1947 is the
assimilative period when the Indian poets still romantic tried to assimilate the
romanticism of the early nineteenth century British poets and the "new" romantics of
the decadent period for expressing the consciousness of the Indian renaissance
between nationalism and political changes which ultimately led to the attainment of
political freedom in 1947.
1.3 POETRY OF FIRST PHASE
The first phase of Indian poetry was the period of literary renaissance in India.
Derozio's poems, Kasiprasad Ghose's The Shair or Ministrel and other poems,
Michael Madhusudan Dutt's The Captive Lady, Manmohan Ghose's Love Songs and
Elegies are a testimony to the creative upsurge occasioned by the romantic spirit
kindled by the literary renaissance. Toru Dutt alone among these romantic poets of
the first phase puts an emphasis on India and her heritage by putting into verse a
large number of Indian legends. The romantic Toru Dutt is also a predecessor in
respect to the use of the tree in verse as demonstrated by "Our Casuarina Tree", a
predecessor in respect of childhood memories recalled with nostalgia or regret.
1.4 POETRY OF SECOND PHASE
The poets of the second phase, still romantic in spirit were Sarojini Naidu, Tagore,
Aurobindo Ghose and Harindranth Chattopadhyaya. The poetic output of these poets
was prolific. Romanticism of these Indian poets was fraught with nationalism,
spirituality and mysticism. It was therefore different from English romanticism.
Indian romanticism widened the poet's vision. While Aurbindo's was the search for
the Divine in Man and Tagore's was the quest for the Beautiful in Man and Nature.
Both were philosopher poets. Sarojini Naidu's romantic muse underscored the charm
and splendour of traditional Indian life and Indian scene. She had a fine ear for
verbal melody as she was influenced not only by English poetry but also by the
Persian and Urdu poetry. She excelled in lyricism. She was a true nightingale of
India. Poetry written in the colonial period with a view to establish Indian identity by
the Indian poets was an explosion or rather outburst of emotions: the nationalistic,
philosophical, spiritual or mystical emotions. The appeal was to the heart of the
readers. The poetry of Toru Dutt, Sri Aurbindo, Tagore and Sarojini Naidu could not
be romantic since they had to express the ethos of the age. They were not merely
imitating the English romantics, Victorians and Decadents blindly. Their poetry was
the best voice of the contemporary Indian time - spirit. It would be fair to say that
Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu constitute a kind of watershed between the first two
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phases, in that they share their predecessor's individual nostalgia as well as their
successor's sense of crisis and quest for identity.
1.5 MAJOR THEMES DEALT IN INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY
One cannot deny the fact that Indian poetry in English in the post - independence
period is different from the poetry in the pre - independence period or rather colonial
period. All literature, as Taine, the French critic said, is the product of the triad, the
race, the moment and the milieu and since for the Indians the attainment of
independence in 1947 marks a great watershed in the annuals of India's political
history, the period preceding independence was naturally full of political ferment and
turmoil and the urge of the nationalist Indians to acquire a distinct national identity
to avoid being brow - beaten by the imperialist forces. The Time - spirit that
permeated colonial India and began to permeate independent India were different.
The sources of inspiration derived from the Indian ethos were ipso facto different.
What England and America witnessed in the early part of the 20th century, India
witnessed in the post - independence period. Indian English poetry therefore
acquired a new dimension of modernity and modernist trait in the 50s when the
English and the American poetry had acquired it in the 20s.
1.5.1 Pre-independence poetry themes:

Poetry in English written in the colonial period, though of a different order, cannot
be just dismissed as insignificant however imitative or derivative it may be.
Whatever its deficiencies, it has no doubt certain areas of excellence in the works of
Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, Tagore and Ghose. Literary history shows how the
succeeding generation tends to run down and disown the preceding generation, the
predecessors. Most of the early poetry was inspired by the Indian freedom struggle
and the western romantics. Derozio, Kashiprasad Ghose and the Dutt family wrote
romantic poetry highlighting the The themes were vivid like Indian legends and
myths, epics like Ramayana, childhood memories under the Indian sun etc.
1.5.2 Post - independence poetry themes:

The post - independence poetry underwent a sea change as far as the themes are
concerned. The poets are faced with the crisis of identity so their poetry is one of
quest, a search of their self, a search for their cultural roots. The reason for such a
theme of Indian poetry is not far to seek. The Indian poets who express themselves in
English have their cultural roots in their community. Many of these Indian poets
have been educated abroad but since they belong to the middle - class, they find
themselves alienated within their own immediate circle and even from the
westernized ethos. Some of the poets come from different racial backgrounds but are
nationals of India for example, Nissim Ezekiel is a Jew, Dom Moraes is an Anglo -
Indian, Daruwalla and Jussawalla are Parsees, Eunice De Souza is a Goan Christian.
The Indian poet writing in English therefore finds himself alienated. So the poetry of
modern Indian poets naturally turns on the theme of identity crisis. Poets like
Ramanujan, Parthasarthy and Arun Kolatkar are preoccupied with the problem of
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roots. Their examination of Hindu ethos has been in several directions. Ramanujan,
for example, conjures up his early childhood memories with strong sense
impressions. At the same time his mind keeps examining the strong and weak points
of his cultural heritage. Parthasarthy too is obsessed with his roots in India while
leading a westernized life style. His poem 'Rough Passages' is an attempt to deal with
the theme of identity exposed to two cultures namely the Indian and the Western.
The scrutiny of society is another subject matter of modern poetry.
1.6 CONTRIBUTION OF WOMEN TO INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY
The contribution of women poets to Indian English poetry holds a lot they share their
experience of struggle, suffering and success with us; they have written poems on
various themes, in individual styles and they are the poets of great worth.
 Toru Dutt (1856-77) is a gifted Indian poet In English; She looks a Keatsian
figure in Indian English literature who died at the age of twenty one. She shares
her vision and her experience with us, celebrates Indian womanhood and her
language exhibits variety and originality. ‘Our Casuarina Tree’ is her celebrated
poem .The tree stands for her changing time and life, especially as a witness to
her vicissitudes in life .She remains unrivalled in early nineteenth Indian English
poetry.
 Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) has written a variety of poems, on a variety of

themes; the theme of love remained her favourite throughout. Above all, she
records social Indian life in her poetry .She is a patriot and a poet, a poet of The
Golden Threshold(1905), The Birth of Time (1912),The Broken Wing(1917),
and Feather of the Dawn (1961).Love , life ,death and destiny frequently surface
in poetry . Her creativity relates to the early 20th century. ‘Palanquin-bearers’
and ‘ Banglesellers ‘ are among her much read poems.
 Monika Varma(1916- ) Despite undue neglect she deserves to be mentioned as

a major woman poet who achieved a fine balance between quality and quantity
and believed in disciplined art. There is something of Wordsworth in her poetry
and she is contrasted with her famed contemporaries Kamala Das and Gauri
Deshpande in the application of her disciplined mind. Dragonflies Draw Flame
(1962) is among best collections.
 Kamala Das (1934-2009) is a highly unorthodox poet, equals D H Lawrence in

recording and sharing her most intimate experiences and moments and loves to
personalise her art. She responds to the needs, aspirations and emotions of every
natural woman .Her English collections include Summer in Calcutta (1965), The
Descendants (1967) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973).Her poem
‘An Introduction’ is known for its simplicity and its sincerity .She wrote fiction
in Malayalam.
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 Eunice de Souza (1940- ) There is something of Emily Dickinson in her poetry,
especially in the minimum use of the most appropriate words, combined with
bitter irony. She attempts mingled themes in her poems, from poets to students,
from women to marriage and religion. She has published the collections-Fix
(1979), Women in Dutch Painting (1988), Ways of Belonging (1990), etc. She
has also edited numerous anthologies.
 Suniti Namjoshi (1941- is a feminist and a poet; raises controversial and

burning issues relating to culture, sex, gender, identity, etc. Her collections
include Poems (1967), Cyclone in Pakistan (1971), The Jackass and the Lady
(1980) and The Authentic Lie (1982).
 Gauri Deshpande (1942- ) explores man – woman relationship and responds to

nature in three volumes: Between Births(1968), Lost Love(1970) and Beyond
the SlaughterHouse(1972). She is sometimes unable to manage her emotions
.She loves to romance with the past and befriends death often.
 Mamta Kalia(1942- ) belongs to the school or the group of her great

contemporaries-Kamala Das , Eunice de Souza , Suniti Namjoshi and above all,
Gauri Deshpande. She writes in Hindi and English. She examines the role of a
woman in a family and society .Her personal experience plays a major role in
moulding her outlook about social and domestic life. Her poetry is ironic and
witty .Her verse collections are Tribute to Papa (1970) and Poems (1978).
 Meena Alexander(1951 - ) lives abroad; an Indian poet of the international

repute writes about the place she left behind and how she feels residing in a
foreign land .She is among Indian diasporic luminaries; they form a glorious
group in Indian literature in English. Stone Roots (1980), House of a Thousand
Doors (1988), River and Bridge(1995),Illiterate Heart (2002) and Raw
Silk(2004) are her poetry collections.
 Imtiaz Dharker(1954 - ) explores the issues relating to women more openly ,in
addition to communal , cultural and geographical issues. Her collections include
Purdah (1989), Postcards from God (1997), Speak for the Devil(2001),The
Terrorist at my Table(2006)and Leaving Fingerprints(2009).
 Chitra Banerjee (1956 -) is a celebrated Indian woman poet, residing in

America , known for her versatility in the literary world , who won in1997the
Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize and the Pushcart Prize for her poems in ‘Leaving
Yuba City’- the best known collection .
 Sujata Bhatt (1956- ) is an internationally recognised poet; she resides in

Germany these days; and on the basis of her overseas experience, she writes
good quality poetry. She earnestly addresses linguistic issues and other
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contemporary issues in Brunizem (1988), Monkey Shadows (1999) and The
Stinking Rose (1995).
 Smita Agarwal (1958-) is a contemporary poet with a couple of collections ,

writing poems of small town India and magical transformations .She is very
sensitive to nature and women related issues. It is yet to be seen if she would be
able to sustain her creativity.
 Mani Rao (1965- ) is a major contemporary poet, with more than half a dozen
collections, published nationally and internationally. She writes about love.
Nature, God and Satan. She seems to explore or unravel the meaning or the
mystery of life .She has the potential to play Hercules .She is also a translator.
 Neelam Saxena Chandra (1969 - ) employs two languages to express herself.

She writes poetry in English; but she writes fiction in Hindi .She is a winner of
the Rabindra Nath Tagore International Award for Poetry2014. She has the
potential to go ahead.
 Nandini Sahu (1973 - ) is a new talented poet who knows how to employ
language and how to utilise personal experience for creative work .She has
published some bright collections, especially The Other Voice (20004).
 Tishani Doshi (1975 - ) is a promising and recognised poet with a couple of

exciting collections –Countries of the Body (2006) and Everything Begins
Elsewhere (2013), focusing on nature, man, woman, immigration and the human
body. She is full of sympathy for the victims or the sufferers.
 Meena Kandasawy (1984 -) is a practising and passionate poet who

concentrates herself on women –related and caste –related issues .She is a poet
with a mission and her collections include Touch(2006) and Ms.Militancy
(2010).
1.7 LETS SUM UP
Women poets have contributed a lot for the recognition and growth of Indian English
poetry. To read them from Toru Dutt to the Present is a new experience in aesthetic
terms. Some of them are well-established and internationally published poets .Even
new poets are worth reading, full of energy and enthusiasm. Hence Indian poetry in
English with its bent towards specificity and concretisation of style, subject and
situation has become more relevant and readable in the context of the burgeoning
violence, intolerance, inequality of power relations and the still prevalent divisive
and discriminatory practices on the basis of region, gender, class, race and caste in
the present times. In the poetry of specifics lies the potentiality of radicalism and
change much required these days. The only thing one wonders if it could be more
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accessible for the common readers in terms of the language and diction as many new
generation poets like Ranajit Hoskote and even Sudeep Sen at times resort to
pedantry and jargon in their poems.
1.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS
1. What are the major themes of Indian English Poetry?

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2. Name some important Indian women writers in the field of Indian English
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3. Into how many phase is Indian English Poetry divided?
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4. Under what condition did Indian English Poetry flourish? Discuss.
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1.9 SUGGESTED READINGS
https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-of-scientific-research-
(IJSR)/fileview.php?val=January_2018_1515074360__288.pdf
https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-of-scientific-research-
(IJSR)/article/background-to-indian-english-poetry-an-overview/MTQwMjc=/
http://www.ajms.co.in/sites/ajms2015/index.php/ajms/article/view/368/345
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UNIT-2 KAMALA DAS AND HER POEMS
Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Kamala Das’s legacy
2.3 Themes in Kamala Das’s poems
2.3.1 Kamala Das: A Rebel against Patriarchy
2.4 Prevalent Orthodox Male Dominion
2.5 The Old Playhouse
2.6 The Looking Glass
2.7 The Stone Age
2.8 The Sunshine Cat
2.9 The Prisoner
2.10 In Love
2.11 Critical Appreciation
2.12 Feminist Assertions in Kamala Das’s Poems
2.13 The Sunshine Cat: Text
2.14 Analysis of “The Sunshine Cat”
2.15 Let us sum up
2.0 OBJECTIVES

 Analyse Kamala Das and her poems.
 Examine and critically appreciate Kamala Das’s poetry.
 Know about few of her most prominent and famous poems.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Kamala Das was born at Punnayurkulam, Kerala in 1934 into the traditionally
matrilineal community of the Nayars. Her mother was the great Malayalam poet
Balamani Amma who exerted considerable influence on her along with the influence
of her uncle Nalapat Narayan Menon who was a prominent Malayalam writer. It was
due to such a rich creative atmosphere that she began to compose and write
prolifically in both Malayalam and English and eventually got her recognition by
winning the PEN Asian Poetry Prize in 1963. Her poetry is known for the
confessional and autobiographical element that seems to provide the necessary thrust
to her poems. Her candid and frank admonition of sexuality in case of both the
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gender has established her reputation as one of the foremost Indian English woman
writers who has earned accolades for possessing a voice so unique and powerful. As
a poet, Kamala Das is completely obsessed with the theme of love, relationship and
sex which she believes is quite natural in human beings along with its counter effects
in the form of loneliness and frustration. She makes it a point to openly discuss and
bring out the tabooed subjects which make the average Indian shy away even at the
very thought of it. The élan and candour of opening such intrinsically private matters
for public consumption is reflected in her muchhyped autobiography My Story. She
expresses the female desire in a revelatory fashion which shock and baffle the minds
of the reader. Nevertheless, despite her preoccupation with the essential notions of
female-hood, she never vocally asserted herself as an active feminist. Her published
works include Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants 91967), The Old Play
House and Other Poems (1973), Tonight, this Savage Rite: The Love Poems of
Kamala Das and Pritish Nandy (1979), The Annamalai Poems (1985), Only the Soul
Knows How to Sing (1996) and Ya Allah (2001). Interestingly, at the age of 65,
Kamala Das embraced Islam and changed her name to Kamala Suraiyya. She has
also published a novel The Alphabet of Lust in 1997. She won the Sahitya Academy
Award in 1985 and passed away on May 31, 2009 at the age of seventy-five.
2.2 KAMALA DAS’S LEGACY
She was shortlisted for Nobel Prize in 1984 along with Doris Lessing, Nadine
Gordimer and Margaret Yourcenar. Her collection poetry includes Summer in
Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967), The Old Playhouse and Other Poems
(1973), Collected Poems I(1984), The Best of Kamala Das(1991) and Only the
Soul Knows How to sing(1996). She has also a daring autobiography, My Story
(1976). She “wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal, and the consequent anguish,
and the Indian readers responded sympathetically to her guileless, guiltless
frankness with regard to sexual matters. Ms. Das abandoned the certainties
offered by an archaic, and somewhat The Voice of a Rebel Woman against
Patriarchy: A Study of Kamala Das‟s Poems sterile, aestheticism for an
independence of mind and body at a time when Indian women poets were still
expected to write about teenage girlie fantasies of eternal, bloodless, unrequited
love”(The histrionics of Kamala Das). Because of her confessional style and open
treatment of female sexuality, her poems led to comparisons with Marguerite Duras
and Sylvia Plath. “On account of her extensive contribution to the poetry in our
country, she earned the label „The Mother of Modern Indian English Poetry” (The
Indian Express).
The poem ‘An Introduction” appeared in Kamala Das’s first volume of poems
entitled summer in Calcutta which was published in 1965. This poem is fully
autobiographical and may also be labelled as a confessional poem. It is confessional
in the sense that Kamala Das here takes the reader into her confidence with regard to
matters which are strictly private and personal. Like all her other confessional
poems, this poem shows Kamala Das’s candour in dealing with themes like sex and
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the female body which has long been held as a tabooed subject in the Indian context.
At the same time, it also shows her capacity for self-assertion. Furthermore, it is a
poem of revolt against conventionalism and against the restrictions which the Indian
society has imposed upon women since time immemorial. Kamala Das’s feminist
outlook and her advocacy in favour of the rights of women although in an indirect
manner find ample expression in this poem.
2.3 THEMES IN KAMALA DAS’ POEMS-
2.3.1 Kamala Das: A Rebel against Patriarchy
In “An Introduction” she rebels against those who ask her

“Don’t write in English...English is not your mother tongue.”
Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you
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Why not let me speak in any language I like.”(An Introduction
Though her language may sound funny because of half English and half Indian
but it voices her joys, longings and hopes and fits to her “as cawing is to crows or
roaring to the lions.”Then she describes her first encounter with a male as her body
shows sign of changes. She became tall, her limbs swelled, and hair sprouted in her
private parts. She claims, “I was a child” and she asked for love and she was taken
“into the bedroom and closed the door” after her marriage. She was not beaten there
but her “sad woman body felt so beaten” because she was not prepared for the
significant changes that her body goes through because of pregnancy.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

I shrank pitifully...” (An Introduction)
So as a mean of protest like a rebel she wore a shirt, her brother’s trousers,
cut her hair short ignoring her womanliness against those who asked her to
„become‟ a woman
“Dress in sarees, be girl

Be wife... Be embroider, be cook,
Be a quarreler with servants..
Be Amy, or be Kamala.
Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty” (An
Introduction,)
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2.4 PREVALENT ORTHODOX MALE DOMINION
Kamala Das has made an honest treatment of prevalent orthodox male

dominion in the poem “The Freaks” and depicts the torment and disappointment of
a woman in sexual life through her confessional style. Society wants women to
be submissive and passive in all aspects of life. A woman has to lead her
conjugal life with a man with whom she has no emotional contact at all. But
in this poem, there is a note of a rebel woman as in the very beginning of
the poem the poet describes the man in question with some unattractive attributes.
The woman is repulsive to her husband.
‘’ He talks, turning a sunstained

Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam.’’
They want to make love and ashe moves his fingers it arouses her “skin's lazy
hungers” only but failed to communicate with her soul, her heart remains “an empty
cistern”. The image conveys her horror and repulsion in all its intensity. She feels
that she may be unnatural and freakish because she does not behave like a
normal submissive woman. So to hide her abnormality she puts on pose of
flamboyant lust‟. Like a submissive woman she does not remain quit in the
four walls but speaks against the prevalent orthodox male dominion in societal
conventions. Through the images of her repulsion and horror, she brings out
emptiness of love and emotion and sterility of conjugal life in male dominated
society
2.5 THE OLD PLAYHOUSE
In “The Old Playhouse” Kamala Das brings out the anxieties, frustrations and
contemplations of a woman through the institution of loveless marriage.
Through the image of a brilliant metaphor she points out the relationship
between husband and wife through the historical phenomenon of
colonialism with its practices and effects
‘’You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her

In the long summer of your love so that
she would forget Not the raw seasons alone,
and the homes left behind, but Also her nature,
the urge to fly, and the endless Pathways of the sky.”
(The Old Playhouse}
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In her confessional tone of rebellion against patriarchal dominion she openly and
unabashedly describes the position of woman and openly talks about sexuality. She
becomes “the first Hindu woman to write frankly about sexual desire”
You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured

Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed
My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices.”(The Old Playhouse,)
She was forced and conditioned to become a wife to perform the household
chores and to serve in his needs
“To break saccharine into your tea and

To offer at the right moment the vitamins
This kind relationship between husband and wife not only reduced her position
to insignificant but also suffocated her physically and psychologically.
“Cowering Beneath your monstrous ego I ate

The magic loaf and Became a dwarf.
I lost my will and reason, to all your Questions
I mumbled incoherent replies.”(The Old Playhouse,
Das refers to the story of Narcissus at the end of the poem to point out the woman’s
agonizing experiences. The woman realizes that his love is based on
physicality instead of emotional bonding. His love for her is solely for himself,
like the mythical Narcissus looking at his own reflection amazingly. So the woman
in the last lines seeks a solution
It must seek at last

An end, a pure, total freedom, it must will the mirrors
To shatter and the kind night to erase the water.
K.R.S. Iyengar remarks “Under the Indian sun, although sensuality lures irresistibly,
yet it fails to satisfy feeling and introspection but sound the depths of the
oceanic sense of frustration, and the calm of fulfillment eludes forever. Love is
crucified in sex, and sex defiles itself again and again”.
2.6 THE LOOKING GLASS
In “The Looking Glass” Kamala Das searches for self-identity in the male
dominant society where a woman has to give up everything to satisfy the
male ego by accepting masculinity as superior to femininity. Dr. Sushil Kumar
Mishra in his research article mentions that in the poem “the poet has presented utter
sense of despair and dejection caused by man‟s dominance and exploitation.
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“Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of
Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,
The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your
Endless female hungers ..."(The looking Glass,
Purnima Bali says “The Looking Glass‟ which is not only the mirror of her hurt
Self but also shows her struggle to achieve identity and individualism”
2.7 THE STONE AGE
In “The Stone Age” Kamala Das frankly speaks about the futility of marital
relationships where the husband takes the wife’s identity and forced her to live in a
dehumanized condition. According to Hindu beliefs, marriages are made in heaven
and marriage is the bonding of two souls for seven lifetimes. But the frequent use of
‘I’ and ‘YOU’ clearly indicates that there is no emotional bonding between them.
She sarcastically calls her husband “Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment”
that snatched her full individuality and freedom and turned her into a lifeless
showpiece of “a bird of stone, a granite dove “in his house. The husband almost
ignored her comforts and wants and even disturbed her peace of mind through her
inappropriate behavior.
“You build round me a shabby room,

And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while you read.
With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,
You stick a finger into my dreaming eye.”
So, the woman dissatisfied in her marital relationship goes against the moral code of
society and seeks love through extra-marital relationship. “At another’s door’. She
willfully takes revenge against her husband who neglected and enslaved her to the
position of lifeless showpiece. “For her ideal love is the fulfillment of the levels of
body and mind. It is the experience beyond sex through sex. The tragic failure to
get love in terms of sexual spiritual fulfillment from her husband leads her to
search for it elsewhere”
2.8 THE SUNSHINE CAT
In “The Sunshine Cat” the poet mentions the pathos of a woman who failed to get
real love either from her husband or From her lovers. They all loved her but
denied her the spiritual thrills of love. Unfortunately, her husband whom she loved
most even failed to satisfy her emotional needs. He never thought of having
emotional rapport with her but remained a ruthless watcher to keep a close watch on
her relations with other men.
14
“Being selfish And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor Used her, but was a
ruthless watcher.”
2.9 THE PRISONER
In the poem “The Prisoner” the poetess brings out the position of a woman
through the comparison between a convict and a woman who indulged in sexual act.
The convict in prison studies the conditions of its boundaries to escape and the
woman indulged in sexual activity studies the trappings of her lover’s body to
escape from its snare.
As the convict studies

His prison‟s geography I study the trappings
Of your body, dear love for I must someday
Find An escape from its snare.
2.10 IN LOVE
In the poem “In Love” the poet again exposes the unhappy relationship with her
lover which is completely based on physical coupling. She feels her body as
consumed by her lover in unpleasant ways
“O what does the burning mouth

Of sun, burning in today’s,
Sky, remind me....oh, yes, his
Mouth, and....his limbs like pale and
Carnivorous plants reaching Out
for me”
2.11 CRITICAL APPRECIATION
The poem begins in the first person narrative where the speaker asserts that although
she does not know much about politics, yet she know the names of those persons
beginning with Nehru. This statement is an immediate challenge to the stereotypical
image of the Indian women believed to be ignorant of the ways of the world, born
only to serve the needs of the masculine gender. In fact the entire poem is replete
with instances that celebrate the idea of a liberated female self freed from the
bondage of domestic servitude. The speaker then goes on to describe herself as an
Indian, of a very brown complexion, born in Malabar with the ability to speak three
languages, write in two and dream in the third. She then speaks sarcastically of her
relatives who used to advise her not to write in English as it was not her mother
tongue. The sense of rebellious spirit of Kamala Das finds its best spokesperson in
the form of the speaker who decries all her relatives and friends and takes them to
task for giving her a reductive view of her own self
15
The speaker then talks about the physical and bodily changes that dawn upon her,
appropriating herself more concretely into the feminine gender. But the manner of
asserting such changes is quite bold given the generally reserved Indian sentiment on
such issues. It is in the most candid terms that the speaker describes the crudity of
her husband who fails to reciprocate her tender feelings and her feminine desires.
She goes on to speak about people who urged her to engage in female chores like
embroidery and cooking or to engage in cheap skirmish with the house servants.
They also asked her to tone down her temperament which they believe was not at all
congenial for the smooth running of the family and further advised her not to pretend
to be a schizophrenic or a nymphomaniac. These qualitative advices at once indicate
the restrictive norms that define the life of Indian women who are never given due
recognition but are always pitted into an abyss of sexual surrender to the male
members of the family.
The speaker finally describes herself as;
...I am sinner
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys which are not yours,
The feminism of the poet here comes full circle in her spontaneity to break away
from the conventional and orthodox limitations of the female sex which has to bear
the brunt of male domination and superiority. Kamala Das tries to assert this aspect
with gusto that the idea of conceiving females as belonging to a different reality is
seriously flawed and unjust, that the female is no different from the male, that like
every other human being she is sometimes sinful and sometimes pious, sometimes
loved and sometimes betrayed, that she has the same joys and aspirations in life like
others and that she too suffers from disappointments like others.
Thus, Kamala Das has successfully given a self-portrait and the anatomy of her mind
in the form of this poem. Apart from the ingenuous sexual imagery and metaphors,
the title is basically an introduction not only of herself but of the entire community
of Indian women afflicted with gender inequality. Although she never professed to
be a feminist along set standards, this poem rightly place her as a one. Stylistically
speaking, the poem is devoid of any metre and rhyme and so is drafted in vers libre
(free verse) which is characterised by compression, compactness and apt
phraseology.
2.12 FEMINIST ASSERTIONS IN KAMALA DAS’S POEMS
Feminism is a recent literary phenomenon and generally centring on a women’s

struggle for equality and to be accepted as a human being. It is basically concerned
with women’s marginalised position in society, discrimination faced by them
because of the patriarchal culture and way of their emancipation. It involves
16
political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal
protection for women. The literary feminism too deals with cultural, economic,
educational and social inequalities of women in the male dominated society and the
writers of feminism deal with the problems of women from female point of view.
According to Linda Gordon, “Feminism is an analysis of women’s subordination for
the purpose of figuring out how to change it.”
A number of earliest practitioners of feminism like Marry Wollstonecraft ( The

Vindication of the Rights of Women), Margaret Fuller ( Women in the Seventeenth
Century), JS Mill (The Subjection of Will), Virginia Woolf ( A Room of One’s
Own), Simon de Beauvoir ( The Second Sex), Marry Ellmann ( Thinking about
Women), Kate Millet ( Sexual Politics) questioned long standing, dominant, male
phalocentric ideologies, patriarchal attitudes and male interpretation in literature and
also sought more equality and freedom for women
There are some common assumption and concepts behind the writings of feminist
writers. According to them, institutions of literature and critical practice have been
vitiated from the two concepts, i,e the patriarchal ideology and the concept of
gender. In the entire realm of literature it is the male who dominates and whenever
the women appear in any role she is given subservient, marginal and ordinary role.
This is designed by the literary artist. So, the feminists challenged these things –
patriarchal concept of gender and one sided evaluation of literary output – which
constitute their common ideology. They assert the writing from female point of view
and for the female centred approach to life.
Many modern Indian English women poets raise their voices against the persecution
of women in a male dominated society. They are feminists ready to assert their lives
in a new and different way. Those women poets in contemporary Indo-Anglian
literature display feminist ethos in their poems. They are worth reading for its fierce
originality, bold images, exploration of female sexuality and intensely personal
voice.
Kamala Das is the pioneer of feminism sensibility in Indian English poetry. With the
advent of Kamala Das women poetry takes a sudden turn who frankly expresses the
feminine sensibility, its exploitation, its hurts, anguishes and suppression in a male
dominated society. In her poetry she is intensely conscious of herself as a woman.
No doubt, her poetry is confessional and autobiographical but at times it has
universal appeal too. In her poetry and her famous autobiography ‘My Story’, she
expresses her own frustration and resentment in a male dominated world and tries to
maintain her individuality and feminine identity. According to M K Nayak , “Das’s
poetry produces one of a bold, ruthless honesty tearing passionately at conventional
attitudes to reveal the quintessential woman within.” A large part of her poetry
represents female voice true to woman’s experience. The intensely personal and
confessional quality of Das’s work recalls in some ways Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton
and Judith Wright.
17
An Introduction is autobiographical and confessional in tone. The poem
reveals a gender bias and the poet’s assertion in favour of living
spontaneously in her own way. It presents the truthful picture of her life, her
emotions of love and sex, her revolutionary attitude against the callous and
cruel patriarchy and her bold pleading for feminism.
The poem opens with the poet introducing herself as an innocent girl entirely
ignorant of the ways of the world. The poem begins with assertion:
I don’t know politics, but I know the names of those in power,
When she grows up further tension begins. First of all, her right to choose any
language she likes. She has great fascination for the English language. But her
family members ask her not to use it. She is fed up with such types of restriction
imposed by the patriarchal domination. She boldly resents and refuses this restriction
on her freedom of expression and her identity. This is the earliest reaction of her
identity:
Don’t write in English, they said, English is not your mother-tongue. Why not
leave Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins ………….why not let me
speak in Any language I like?
In the second stage, when she attains puberty and adolescence, the patriarchy of her
family gets her married:
I was child, and later they

Told me I grew for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair when
I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door. He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body fell so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me. I shrank
Pitifully.
It implies the poet’s piteous plight under the patriarchal domination, her yearning for
love and freedom. It shows the miserable condition of an average Indian woman who
gets married early. Love is denied, instead of it, they receive sexual exploitation and
humiliation. She has to live in restriction posed by the conservative male dominated
society. She is compelled to accept the traditional feminine role as a girl, house-wife,
a cook, a quarreller and so on. She rebels against such womanliness:
Dress in saris, be girl

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook
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Be a quarreller with servants.
The poet also observes the monopoly of the patriarchal society:
Be Amy, or be Kamala, or better

Still be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games
Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love
A woman in Indian society is always instructed to observe the well-established

norms of the male dominated family. The poet realises that her experiences are the
experiences of every woman who are devoid of love and liberty. It makes her
rebellious and she boldly and frankly asserts:
…… I met a man, loved him, call

Him not by any name, he is every man,
Who wants a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him…the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me………
The concluding lines of the poem records the poet’s longing for autonomy and a
woman identity. She asserts her determination to live spontaneously a life of
passions and emotions and wants to be herself and live her life:
I have no joys which are not yours, no

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself?
Thus, the poem An Introduction is a representative confessional and

autobiographical poem. She is well aware of her individuality and feminine identity
and asserts it in the poem.
https://zenodo.org/record/1296818#.YBJegegzY2w
2.13 THE SUNSHINE CAT: TEXT
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sunshine-cat/
They did this to her, the men who know her, the man
She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish
And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor
Used her, but was a ruthless watcher, and the band
Of cynics she turned to, clinging to their chests where
New hair sprouted like great-winged moths, burrowing her
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Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget
To forget, oh, to forget, and, they said, each of
Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not
In my nature to love, but I can be kind to you.
They let her slide from pegs of sanity into
A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping,
For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears,
She said, walls to shut me in. Her husband shut her
In, every morning, locked her in a room of books
With a streak of sunshine lying near the door like
A yellow cat to keep her company, but soon
Winter came, and one day while locking her in, he
Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a
Line, a half-thin line, and in the evening when
He returned to take her out, she was a cold and
Half dead woman, now of no use at all to men.
https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research-
(IJAR)/fileview/August_2016_1470493740__195.pdf
2.14 ANALYSIS OF ‘THE SUNSHINE CAT’
Like most of her confessional poems, The Sunshine Cat is another striking poem by
Das. Included in Summer in Calcutta (1965), the poem reveals the emotional
intensity of a wife caused by much sexual humiliation and exploitation and her
confinement in marital bond. It strongly revolts the male dominated society and
presents a bitter reality of life.
The poem is concerned with the plight of a woman who has become the prey of the
lust of many men. She has not achieved emotional fulfilment with her husband as
well as other men with whom she has been intimate contact. They want her only
sexually and don’t respond to her love. And it brings identity crisis in her feminine
self:
They did this to her, the man who knows her, the man
She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish
And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor used her.
The woman strives to find emotional fulfilment in love but proves to be futile. Her
husband is a mean and lustful like others. She calls her husband ‘ a ruthless watcher’.
In the absence of love he is interested in satisfying his lust and physical desire. In
such an emotional sterility and loveless atmosphere the woman’s heart is:
A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping
For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears
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She said wall to shut me in.
She yearns for love but all of them refuse to love her and all are equally proved to be
lustful. She is so disgusted that she wants to wipe away their memories – their lust,
their smells and their ugly hair on their chests. She says:
Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget
To forget, oh, to forget, and they said, each of
Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not
This is her strong voice to forget all humiliation that she has faced.
The miseries of utter loneliness, humiliation and non fulfilment of love cast a
melancholy shadow over her and she becomes:
She was a cold and

Half –dead woman, now of no use at all to man.
Such is the life of woman in male dominated society where her individuality, identity
and freedom are at stake. A woman is always denied love and emotional fulfilment
in her married life. It only fills a woman’s life with frustrations and humiliations.
To conclude, Kamala Das is the name of feminine sensibility. She is aware of her
feminist identity and asserts it in her poems. She rebels against the exploitation of
women in a male made world and opposes all well established conventions and
norms of the society, which are meant to exploit womankind. According to KRS
Iyenger, “Kamala Das is a fiercely feminine sensibility that dares without inhibitions
to articulate the hurts it has received in an insensitive largely man –made world.” By
identifying herself with other suffering women, Kamala Das transfers her personal
anguish into a universal one and her poetry become a bold pleading for feminism.
2.15 LET US SUM UP
To conclude it can be said that the poems of Kamala Das has a clear note of a
rebel woman who raises her voice against the insensible and dehumanized
treatment of women in all aspects of life in a male dominated society. “Her poems
are revolt, and the revolt is the outcome of all her dissatisfaction and
psychological traumas” (Sheeba).Throughout her poems, she speaks in an
“aggressively individualistic” tone against the male dominion that makes the life
of a woman passive and submissive to insignificant and lifeless. She examines
the silences of women in male dominated society, feels the alienation of
self and the burden of becoming a woman, experiences the lover’s betrayal
and dehumanized treatment of her husband. However, she does not remain quite
like a submissive and obedient wife but questions the conventional role of
woman in family and society and rebels against the patriarchal mores of
society through fiery voice in her poems. She speaks up openly about the
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pains of becoming a woman and marital rape through the institution of marriage
where there is no true love that snatches not only a woman’s liberty and individuality
The Voice of a Rebel Woman against Patriarchy: A Study of Kamala Das’s poems
but also suffocates her physically and psychologically. Though apparently it seems
that Kamala Das wrote about her life and her experiences because of the repetition of
the first person singular “I” in her poems but it is not only about her life and her
experience, they become the voice of every rebel Indian woman.
1. Kamala Das’s ‘An Introduction’ is a confessional poem. Discuss.

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3. In what ways does the poem ‘The Sunshine Cat revel the emotional intensity of
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https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=13
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sunshine-cat/
https://zenodo.org/record/1296818#.YBJegegzY2w
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UNIT-3 SYLVIA PLATH AND HER POEMS
Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Mirror; the Text
3.3 Analysis of “Mirror”
3.4 Barren Woman
3.5 Analysis of “Barren Woman”
3.6 Let us sum up
3.0 OBJECTIVES

 Analyse Sylvia Plath and her works.
 Examine her poems and critically appreciate it.
 Know about her personal life and her legacy.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
Sylvia Plath's major poetic works are 1. The colossus and other poems (1960) 2.
Ariel (1965) 3. Crossing the Water (1971) 4. Winter Trees (1971) 5. Collected
Poems (1981) It is said that her poetry is the mainly characterized by intense self-
consciousness, despair and disquieting expressions of futility and frustration. Her
literary personality is extremely intricate and it is quite impossible to disentangle her
biographical details from her creative writings. She is one of the major Post War
American confessional poets. It is quite surprising that her subjective lamentation
often reach the universal heights. Naturally, her works have inspired so many women
writers and feminist critics from the successive generations after her death, and she
has been an influencing poet of future generations of American poetry.
Sylvia Plath continued the traditional of confessional poetry. Her poetry is subjective
and poignant. Her works evoke mythic qualities ii nature. Her vivid and intense
poems explore such topics as personal am feminine identity, individual suffering and
the inevitability of death. Deeply informed by autobiographical elements, Plath's
poetry poignantly reflect her struggles with despair and mental illness. Her efforts to
assert a strong female identify and to balance familial, marital and career aspirations
have established her as a representative voice for feminist concerns. Plath is linked
with confessional poets like Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, Theodore
Roethke and Allen Ginsbery. Confessional poetry of these poets has one
24
characteristic in common. It deals almost exclusively and intensely with the
poets’self.
3.2 MIRROR (TEXT)
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
https://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/view/3090/2559
3.3 ANALYSIS OF ‘MIRROR’
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath lost his father when he was 8. She
attempted suicide when she was 11. After her marriage to Ted Hughes, her second
pregnancy ended in miscarriage in 1961, few months before writing her poem
mirror. She committed suicide two years later in 1963 at the age of 30. Plath had a
hard time living with all the misfortunes she had to encounter, as it is understood
from one of her suicide notes stating "blissfully succumbed to the whirling blackness
that I honestly believed was eternal oblivion" - (Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford University Press). Having these in mind, we can take into
account that her poetry was affected by her troubled life. Plath wrote mirror on
October 23, 1961 which was published in her book the collected poems.
There are many essays written about Plath and her poetry. As for her poem mirror
critics believe that it conceals the message of femininity, the way women are valued
by patriarch society, lack of self-identity, or that it is related to her recent loss of a
pregnancy. Another proposition suggested by this paper is that mirror proclaims
25
mysticism and mystical beliefs Plath had developed while writing this poem. The
poem mirror by Sylvia Plath consists of two stanzas and is written in the form of free
verse, so there are no rhymes or meter. Each stanza has nine lines; the first one
denotes the mind of a mirror and the latter indicates that of a lake. Here is an
analytical view considering the mystical concepts in the poem.
In the first line of the poem, the mirror introduces itself as exact and without any
preconceptions which means showing exactly what the mirror sees, showing the
truth, the reality which is defined in mysticism. In the second line the mirror
swallows whatever it sees, anyone who stands in front of the mirror is swallowed by
it, meaning the possibility of seeing the truth is available for every single person who
is willing to face the reality. The only necessity is coming in front of the mirror.
Another interpretation is that the poet suggests that reaching the mystic state in
which the reality is to be found, is possible for anyone who seeks it.
The word immediately is referred to the third characteristic of the mysticism which
dictates that this mystical state is immediate, abrupt, and unsustainable. According to
the third line, life is misted by so many factors such as love or dislike, misted as if
there is something hidden, some kind of secret, which demands to be cleared or
revealed, this is exactly the same as the root meaning of mysticism. We should also
notice that the word mist used in the third line resembles the word mystic. In the
fourth line the mirror confesses to be truthful and not cruel. The reality, the truth
presented by the mirror is not something we expect, on the contrary it may be hard
and painful to encounter.
The words god and meditate in the fifth and the sixth line refer to the dictionary
meaning of the word mysticism. As we know God breathed soul into human, the eye
of a little god, defines seeing from the soul which God has given us. The mirror
meditates, thinks, as it is a tool to reach a mystic state. The wall is what obscures our
vision, it stands between us and the mystic truth. The mirror has been looking at this
pink wall for a long time and this obscurity is what the mirror is living by.
Sometimes people come into and go out of the room which just like the wall are
another distraction.
The mirror then turns into a lake. The mirror resembles the lake in that they both
have a reflective feature and need light in order to do so; but their difference is that
the lake has depth and is always facing the sky, it contains water, an element that
gives life to nature and living things; but the mirror is portable, usually facing
another wall, solid with no depth. A woman bends over the lake in order to see
herself, she looks into the lake seeking what she really is. Here again we can clearly
see that the poet’s purpose is to look for reality and truth. She indicates to a virtual
person who is looking for her true self and true identity. And the poet herself is the
lake which shows this truth.
26
In the 12th line poet point to yet some other obstacles, the candles and the moon. The
poet refers to them as liars, just like the wall, they are what distract us from reality.
The moon and the candles are introduced as liars since they only show a dim light,
not belonging to them, which hides most of the defects and the ugly truths. The
personified lake then sees the woman and reflects her true self faithfully. According
to this line the lake is trustworthy.
The woman rewards the lake with tears, meaning that she cries, she is agitated and
angry, for all the lies she has been hearing until now and also because the reality is
not what she was expecting, as mentioned before the moon and the candles have
been lying to her. The word reward means the prize given to someone who does
good, so the woman knows the lake’s good intension by telling her the truth, but this
truth brings tears to her eyes which she gives to the lake. It should also be taken to
account that this teary eye and the process of crying also means washing the eyes,
clearing the vision, seeing differently. The lake is important to the woman, of course
now that she knows what the truth is and how reality is reached, she can’t deny it, so
she often visits the lake, as to reach the truth and reality.
The woman, now aware of the truth, looks into the mirror every morning replacing
the darkness of the room. The woman can’t close her eyes to this realization of
reality, so she keeps facing the mirror as a reminder. All through her life the woman
has been looking at her reflection, wanting to see her beauty and youth, but now that
reflection has drowned, gone, and dead, and instead an old woman is born. She is
now grown, wise, and aware. The poet resembles the old woman to a terrible fish.
This fish is the truth that each day rises towards her, meaning she understands more
and more about the reality and the truth. The word fish is used because the persona
of the poem is a lake and this fish, being the truth, lives deep down inside it. The
word terrible is used since the truth is hard to take, unlike what she is used to see, her
young beautiful self, now she is seeing her true self who is aged, and every day she
has to live with the truth that has been opened up to her.
According to this analysis the poet, Sylvia Plath, two years before her suicide
attempt, has experienced a mystical state. We may even be able to relate this fact as a
reason for her suicide, considering that she could not handle the truth, or even claim
that she suicided as a fulfillment phase of her mystical experience. Another instance
of experiencing mystical state is that of the poem the bird may die composed by
Forough Farrokhzad which we are going to relate to Sylvia Plath’s mirror. There are
many articles and essays declaring the similarities of these two poets’ techniques,
aims, and beliefs. So now this paper aims to relate the mystical aspect of the two
poems.
3.4 BARREN WOMAN
https://allpoetry.com/Barren-Woman
27
Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.
I imagine myself with a great public,

Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.
Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen.
Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.
3.5 ANALYSIS OF ‘BARREN WOMAN’
Reference-
https://www.cram.com/essay/The-Theme-Of-Motherhood-In-Plaths-
Barren/PKY4KCB9GREE5
https://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1283
The poem narrates the story of a woman who can’t conceive and feels ‘empty’ (line
1). The narrator, here, refers to a life without splendour. She considers herself a
‘museum without statues’. An empty museum is of no use. Similarly, a ‘barren
woman’ also fails to fulfil what is often expected of her i.e., reproduction. The
narrator feels that bearing children would invite her praise and positive attention. She
imagines herself as ‘mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos’ so that
she finds acceptance ‘with a great public’. However, at the same time, she accepts
the reality and exclaims, ‘nothing can happen’. Towards the end of the poem she is
probably at the doctor’s for treatment for infertility. In a nutshell, Plath’s ‘Barren
Woman’ deals with the theme of infertility where a woman is considered a social
outcast for the same.
3.6 LET US SUM UP
By and large the modern American poets are influenced by poets like Eliot and
Pound. The academic poets or poets of establishment like Richard Eberhart, Stanley
Kunitz, Randell Jarrell, and Howard Nemerov etc. continued to write under the
influence of Eliot. However, in second quarter of the 20th Century they revolted
against tradition and have developed their individual styles. The direct use of
personal experience as themes of their poems by academic poets was an inevitable
reaction to Auden and Eliot's poetic impersonality. The declarative poetic style of
these poets is recognized by later critics as confessional. Randell Jarrell, Howard
Nemerov, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, W.D. Snodgrass have influenced later
poets. The poeties of Anne Sexton, Elizabeth, Bishop, Barbara Howe's, and Isabella
28
Gardner can be called as type of 'projective verse'. This post war poetry is largely
subjective and highly confessional.
1. What mystical concepts are explored in Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Mirror’?

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2. Which theme is talked about in Sylvia Plath’s ‘Barren Women’?

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3. Explain the lines:
“I am not cruel; only truthful
The eye if a little god, four-cornered.
29
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4. Discuss Sylvia Plath’s use of personification in her poem ‘The Mirror’
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https://www.cram.com/essay/The-Theme-Of-Motherhood-In-Plaths-
https://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1283
https://allpoetry.com/Barren-Woman
https://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/view/3090/2559
http://oldisrj.lbp.world/ViewPDF.aspx?ArticleID=913
https://allpoetry.com/poem/8498499-Mirror-by-Sylvia-Plath
30
UNIT-4 EUNICE DE SOUZA AND HIS POEMS
Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Eunice and her poems
4.3 Women in Eunice’s poetry
4.4 ‘Women in Dutch Painting’
4.4.1 Text
4.4.2 Analysis
4.5 Let us sum up
4.0 OBJECTIVES

 Analyze Eunice D’Souza and her works.
 Examine few of her famous works/poems.
 Critically analyze and appreciate her works as a feminist writer.
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Eunice de Souza, living and brought up in Indian “Goan Catholic society” glances at
the overall problems and issues of women in Indian society and articulates them
from a dispassionate angles. Her poetic articulation foregrounds “a realistic image of
man-woman ties” in Indian cultural system. She endeavours to expose the
subjugation of Indian middle-class woman in their families, married life and at large
by the Indian male-centric tradition, which is not only socio-cultural, but
psychological as well. Her expression of the sufferings and agonies of woman with a
touch of irony under patriarchal repression and her revolt against it prove her a
powerful feminist voice in contemporary Indian English women’s poetry. In her
poems, she tries to demonstrate brilliantly the miscellaneous social and cultural
contexts in which patriarchy functions in her poetry. In response to the patriarchal
dominance, de Souza realistically unravels the tragedy of her mother under the
dominance of patriarchy in the poem “My Mother Feared Death”. Here she
constitutes the compendium of her mother’s life which is devoid of love, feeling and
emotional touch. She gives account of her confinement and suffering which she has
experienced within the doors, grilles and locks of house. She postulates:
31
4.2 EUNICE AND HER POEMS
(1) doors, grilles, locks

(2) that would not open
(3) Coffins, crematoriums.
(4) No way to treat a lady.
(5) ………………………
(6) Alive or dead, mothers are troubling. (A Necklace of Skulls 108-9)
She seems to be holding out the fact how patriarchal set-up brings woman down
physically, mentally and emotionally as well in the confined space which is created
by male patriarchal system. The process of patriarchy creates a situation of
sufferings in their life whether they are dead or alive. The above mentioned
terminology with images like --“door”, “locks” and “grilles” powerfully and
symbolically depicts her as a serious critic of patriarchal female precariousness. But
the crux of the poem lies in the line “No way to treat a lady”. This is what really
brings out a strong space for the poetry of de Souza seeking a reaction against the
precarious female identity in the incubation of contemporary Indian English women
poetry. She reflects “The women moan” (A Necklace of Skulls 110) in her poetic
collections and seeks to create a dignified space for woman persona in Indian
precariousness patriarchal society/dominance. It is such an irony that even now in
this modern age of science and technology which is being followed by equal
standards status of education, the birth of female child is still a consideration/matter
of lament. Even in the present modern world, patriarchy operates in such a way that
it still maintains the gender bias between male and female. In this context of gender
bias, Singh lengthily points out:
In spite of biological categorization of people (because of inherent sexual

difference), gender (as desired or interpreted identity that male or female is supposed
to take on) has created the stereotypical masculine and feminine gender identities.
Men are the ‘super sex’ or the ‘stronger sex’ while women are the ‘inferior sex’ or
the ‘weaker sex’. Men are considered as logical, rational and objective, whereas’
women are presumed as emotional, inconsistent, intuitive, subjective and lacking
self-confidence. Men should be extrovert, competitive, bold, brave, dominating and
aggressive, and women should be submissive, well-behaved, polite, soft-spoken,
supportive, co-operative and sympathetic. The gender bias is reflected even in the
use of language, as is manifest by a number of generic terms such as ‘mankind’, used
to denote the entire race of human beings. The sexist attitudes are seen in the use of
words referring to women having negative connotations. For example, men ‘discuss’
and women ‘gossip’ and ‘chat’, and men are seen as ‘forceful and masterful’ but
women are described as ‘bossy and domineering’. Women have been considered
chatty and garrulous by nature. As says Hesoid: ‘Their untir’d lips a wordy torrent
pour’. (Singh 10-11)
32
In this response women are not considered cogent, rational and intellectual beings as
compared to males. They are always treated as secondary and cooperative to their
male spouse. But it is the influx of educational arrangement which imparted the
buoyancy in the temperament of women to go up with men in all the sphere of the
way of living. Along with the process of women’s convent educational system, the
advent of cyber-culture, rising use of internet, impact of cinema also played a vital
role in the development of their personality and rationality. It provides them to prove
their potentialities and abilities in all the sphere of life. In this reaction woman
character that appears in the poem “Aunt” by de Souza emerges as a powerful female
character who can read great books, magazines and newspaper though being under
the patriarchal authority it is not an easy job for women to read and contemplate.
They are usually treated purely an object of love and sex. Through the processes of
education they are empowered to challenge and subvert the patriarchal hegemony
and dominance. That is why the process of women’s education gives them freedom
to contemplate over various dimensions of their emancipation and liberation. They
commence to reflect on their roles in domestic and social spheres. They start to
sabotage the male dominance and patriarchal praxis. Hence, the female protagonists
in de Souza’s poetry often engage in a critical consideration of their function and
role in the patriarchal world and they make an effort to liberate themselves through
their education:
“She reads the newspapers from first page to last,

looking for a cheerful story. (A Necklace of Skulls 114)”
4.3 WOMEN IN EUNICE’S POETRY
In the poem “Invitation” de Souza writes, “We can read in the courtyard” (117) and
even the female character has aptitude to “write a happy poem or two” (117). These
female characters are creative and being creative celebrates their life. They do not
want to live under the shackles of men’s bondage and dominance. They would like
to be aware of their life achieving an authoritative individuality. Consequently, their
creativity becomes their power. Therefore, they are challenging the patriarchy which
“impacted all aspects of women’s lives”. (Geetha 92) They endeavor to undermine
all prevalent patriarchal notions responsible for sufferings of women in this male
dominated world. That is why their poetry seems to be a “departure from the early
romanticism and comes out much more realistic, frank and bold.”(Prasad 270) In
fact, these contemporary women poets have inundated the expression of female
experiences within the literary scene.
That is why Eunice de Souza delineates the change which has taken place in the
nature of Indian women due to their education and the social environment which is
full of social and technological progress of which women persona are becoming a
part. They are educationally and economically empowered to destabilize the
patriarchal orders in this progressive society. In the poem “Mrs Hermione
33
Gonsalvez”, de Souza deliberately criticizing the concept of heterogeneous marriage
under patriarchal system writes:
Just look at my parents

how they married me to a dark man
on my own I wouldn’t even have
looked at him. (A Necklace of Skulls 8)
In terms of critiquing the patriarchal system, de Souza emerges as a satirist and

unfolding the subjects of her satires she scathingly speaks on the authority of church,
institution of marriage, notion of Catholic motherhood, system of Indian colour
prejudice, sexual prudery and hypocrisy, Goan vulgarity and the alienation felt by
many Goan Catholics towards Hindu India. In the poem “Conversation Piece” she
holds out:
My Portuguese-bred colleague
picked up a clay shivalingam
one day and said:
Is this an ashtray?
No, said the salesman,
This is our god. (A Necklace of Skulls 14)
In the poem Eunice de Souza has mapped out the social order wherein she grew up
and “which she feels made her what she is now.” The poem “De Souza Prabhu”
rejects her past and alien mixture of names and language, but claims that she belongs
with “the lame ducks” (A Necklace of Skulls 26) ever since she heard her parents
‘wanted a boy’. Often de Souza resorts to satiric mode “in these poems the implied
personality appears off-hand, cold, controlled, self-distancing, ironic.”(King 156)
Through such poems she displays how parents long for the birth of male-child in
Indian families. They consider the birth of female-child not less than a curse in this
patriarchal world;
I heard it said
my parents wanted a boy.
I’ve done my best to qualify.
I hid the bloodstains
on my clothes(A Necklace of Skulls 26)
There are some poems by de Souza which display the “psychological” aspects of a
girl-child as she becomes conscious of her sexuality and brings out “the results of
conflicts with parents.”(King 157) In this respect her poem “Forgive Me, Mother” is
unambiguous.
It was kill or die

and you got me anyway:
34
The blood congeals at lover’s touch
The guts dissolve in shit. (A Necklace of Skulls24)
Bringing the women under the influence of precariousness of patriarchy, Indian

traditional religious cultural system encourages them to follow the ‘ritual of fast’
which also promotes the idea of male-domination for, both married women for the
well-being and prosperity of their husbands and for unmarried girls to get a good
husband. In this concern writes Eunice de Souza in the poem “Feeding the Poor at
Christmas”:
you don’t drink

you can’t take your share
for your husband.” (A Necklace of Skulls 5)
This is what denotes the roots of patriarchy in Indian traditional-religious society. In

this regard Neera Desi and Maithreyi Krishnaraj argue in their article “An Overview
of the Status of Women in India” that:
… the subtle expression of patriarchy is through symbolism giving messages of

inferiority of women through legends highlighting the self-sacrificing, self-effacing
pure image of women that through the ritual practices which day in and day out
emphasized the dominant role of a woman as a faithful wife and devout mother.
(Desi and Krishnaraj 299)
That is why being a contemporary Indian English women poet, Eunice de Souza
displays the bitterness of the “second sex” challenging the “lofty image of Indian
woman that vindicates her ordinariness” in an effort to demolish the interpretation of
Indian women enforced by patriarchy in the development of her poetic world. In her
poem “Poem for a Poet” she wittingly speaks on the sexual activities subverting the
precarious patriarchal notion which is an act of “creative expression” by women in
an Indian male-dominated society. Therefore she puts explicitly up:
‘Marie, my frequent sexual encounters

represent more than an attempt
to find mere physical fulfillment. (A Necklace of Skulls 18)
She chooses English language as her medium to articulate the feelings of sex and
desire which are considered a sort of sin in Indian society and deliberately seems to
annihilate the old patriarchal system through her female protagonists. Eunice de
Souza upholds:
Write her a poem about woman flesh.

Watch her become oh so womanly and grateful. (A Necklace of Skulls 19)
35
Further tearing the layers of patriarchy and male-hegemony, she depicts the woman
who is full of rebellious mood.
She would walk too close to me
and then protest naively: How
should lovers walk? (A Necklace of Skulls 20)
Again in the poem “One Man’s Poetry” de Souza probes into the psychology of a
woman in terms of making love. She freely speaks on female sexuality in a
colloquial style. Through such frank articulation of female sexuality, these
contemporary woman poets have created a place for strong female voice which itself
is a rebel against precariousness of female existence. The female protagonist of de
Souza reveal an unrestrained frankness about her sexuality: “My limbs began to
scatter/my face dissolve/my love would hold me close/for hours when I could/neither
speaks nor weep/for him I am learning love”,(30) “Dirty Jokes/hot stuff and sex/such
pink lips/look at that chest”.(A necklace of Skull 9) In the traditional patriarchal
world the use of such sort of “terminologies was considered improper from the
woman’s lips and considered unwomanly”. (Mitra 62) Further in this regard de
Souza propounds the “unsaid prohibition on the use of certain expressions by
women.”(Mitra 62) In this respect the poem, “Sweet Sixteen” offers a realistic
portrayal of the female psyche caught in the oppressive structures that have
suppressed a woman’s sexual-cum-emotional desires. According to Eunice de Souza,
the character of mother in this poem is a representative of an arbitrary power as she
performs the role of an executor of patriarchal will. To her, the usage of words like
“menses”, brassieres” etc are taboo as these purely personal words which do not find
a place in the communal life. The intimate, private life of a woman is at odds with
the politics of the conservative Catholic religious community. In a society that
mutely follows the centuries-old relationship between man and woman based on
rigid sex roles, and that which allows no space for a woman, it is therefore, not
surprising that Eunice mother considers the blatant use of such words by the poetess
as having a demeaning and demoralising impact on the society around.
Mamas never mentioned menses.

A nun screamed: You vulgar girl
Don’t say brassieres
Say bracelets. (A Necklace of Skull 6)
Through the above mentioned lines from “Sweet Sixteen”, de Souza ponders over
the psychic and emotional insecurity which is generally faced by a woman in an
Indian patriarchal setup/society. In the contemporary society, the sexual needs and
desires of a woman are under the entire grip of “society’s oppressive restrictions and
this in turn contributes to her disadvantaged and unprivileged status.”(Nair 126) The
patriarchal dominated society endeavors to subjugate the “women’s feelings and
brushes aside her mental agony.”(Nair 126)
36
As has already been pointed out in this research, Eunice de Souza was brought up in
Indian Goan Catholic community. Thence her childhood memory of Goan Catholic
society in which a woman or girl-child cannot speak on her body and its sexual
needs and desires are still alive in her psyche where “female-sex” was forced to be
besieged by the philosophy of “gender inequalities”, “sexual subordination” and
subjection in an “unjust patriarchal” world. That is why in this regard, Nair says that
“her feminine urges and sensibilities are not allowed to represent and express
themselves.”(Nair 126-27) As in the poem the usage of the words like “menses” and
“brassieres” display the conservative religious mind of Goan Catholic people where
women could not even speak on their bodily or sexual needs. She creates a poetic
idiom which endeavors to subvert patriarchal hegemony. Hence it could be argued
that the contemporary women poets have created their poetic universe which is full
of direct-revelations and free expression. Now the relevance of their poetry lies in
the fact that it emerges as “a significant and effective medium to capture and analyse
the sensibilities and ethos of modern Indian socio-cultural life structured around
patriarchal value system.”(Nair 123) Moving a step ahead from their predecessor
Kamala Das, they endeavoured to break the “long silence” from Indian women’s
writing in response to the articulation of female sexual issues and subjects.
Commenting on the self-revelatory nature of their poetry, Bruce King remarks that in
their poetic universe the “subject matter has largely shifted from the external world
to the psychology of the self. It is the poetry of memory, dreams and anxieties, fears
and self-revelations.”(King 133)
http://www.ajms.co.in/sites/ajms2015/index.php/ajms/article/view/2709/pdf_607
The Otherness leads to alienation, marginalization and trivialization of woman and

makes her revolt against the politics of patriarchy. The struggle against traditional
values and structures is clearly suggested in the poem „ For Who wonders if I Get
Much Joy Out of Life‟:
In fact I do
I contemplate, with certain
Grim satisfaction
Dynamic men who sell better butter
The Catholic character delineated in de Souza‟s poems constitutes evil as this evil
entails denial of freedom. The deep sense of pain and loss and the very absence of
God make her poetry an “act of violence‟.
4.4 WOMEN IN DUTCH PAINTING
4.4.1 Text
https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/women-dutch-painting
The afternoon sun is on their faces.

They are calm, not stupid,
37
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
Ana Anna who writes poems
And hopes her avocado stones
Will sprout in the kitchen.
Her voice is oatmeal and honey.
.Analysis
Reference- http://www.ijims.com/uploads/6eb9a27234e74e35e11a26.pdf
4.4.2 Analysis
Here, Eunice de souza makes a comparison between the women in paintings and the
women she knows in real life. In the initial lines, she talks about the women in the
paintings working in their homes and ‘the afternoon sun is on their faces’. The
women portrayed in the paintings ‘are calm, not stupid’ and ‘pregnant, not bovine’.
Then, the poetess shifts her attention towards women she knows in real life; ‘I know
women like that, And not just in paintings’. The tranquillity in the paintings and the
women the poetess knows (the Aunt , Anna’) comes from alertness of life and not
from ignorance. One can easily find anger in her poems at the attitudes towards
women. The poetess also feels sympathetic towards exploitation of women caused
by their inactiveness and observance of societal norms unfriendly to them.
4.5 LET US SUM UP
Eunice de Souza’s poetry is about unhappy childhood experiences, which are part of
the community in form and inspire much of her poetry. Her poems embody an acute
consciousness of the problems faced by women, expressed in ironic statements and
striking images. Many of her poems are concerned with different aspects of male
domination and female oppression, anxiety and extremities of life. Eunice de
Souza‟s poems have brevity, unexpectedness and urgency of telegrams. While de
Souza is still best known for those quietly angry yet somehow compassionate
portraits of the society in which she was raised, her writing has moved on. De
Beauvior explains this otherness in these words, “The situation of woman is that she
-a free and autonomous being like all creatures nevertheless finds herself living in a
world where men compel her to assume the status of the other”.
1. What does the poem ‘Women in Dutch Painting’ discuss?

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38
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2. What is the tone of the poet in the poem titled ‘Women in Dutch Painting’?
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 https://www.geraldengland.co.uk/aa/baby12.htm#:~:text=Shanta%20Acharya%
3A%20The%20Homecoming&text=or%20for%20others%20I%20have%20love
d%20more%20than%20you.&text=about%20my%20family%20and%20friends
%2C%20whom%20you%20have%20gifted%20to%20me.&text=my%20entreat
ies%20in%20a%20foreign%20land.
 https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research
 https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/Home/ViewSubject?catid=13
 https://zenodo.org/record/1296818#.YBJegegzY2w
 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sunshine-cat/
 https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research-
 http://oldisrj.lbp.world/ViewPDF.aspx?ArticleID=913
 https://allpoetry.com/poem/8498499-Mirror-by-Sylvia-Plath
39
 https://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/article/view/3090/2559
 https://allpoetry.com/Barren-Woman
 https://zenodo.org/record/3466745#.YBKPVegzY2w
http://www.ajms.co.in/sites/ajms2015/index.php/ajms/article/view/2709/pdf_60
7
 https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-of-scientific-research-
(IJSR)/fileview.php?val=January_2018_1515074360__288.pdf
 https://www.worldwidejournals.com/international-journal-of-scientific-research-
(IJSR)/article/background-to-indian-english-poetry-an-overview/MTQwMjc=/
 http://www.ajms.co.in/sites/ajms2015/index.php/ajms/article/view/368/345
 https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/remember-medusa
 https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/women-dutch-painting
 https://www.geraldengland.co.uk/aa/baby12.htm#:~:text=Shanta%20Acharya%
3A%20The%20Homecoming&text=or%20for%20others%20I%20have%20love
d%20more%20than%20you.&text=about%20my%20family%20and%20friends
%2C%20whom%20you%20have%20gifted%20to%20me.&text=my%20entreat
ies%20in%20a%20foreign%20land
 https://www.cram.com/essay/The-Theme-Of-Motherhood-In-Plaths-
 https://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1283
 http://www.ijims.com/uploads/6eb9a27234e74e35e11a26.pdf
 https://zenodo.org/record/3466745#.YBKPVegzY2w
40

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The contents of all the units in this block have been

Unit-2 Kamala Das and Her Poems

Unit-3 Sylvia Plath and Her Poems

Unit-4 Eunice De Souza and Her Poems

After going through this unit, you will be able to:

1.1 INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY: AN INTRODUCTION

1.2 HISTORY OF INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY:

1.3 POETRY OF FIRST PHASE

1.4 POETRY OF SECOND PHASE

1.5 MAJOR THEMES DEALT IN INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY

1.5.1 Pre-independence poetry themes:

1.5.2 Post - independence poetry themes:

1.6 CONTRIBUTION OF WOMEN TO INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY

 Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) has written a variety of poems, on a variety of

 Monika Varma(1916- ) Despite undue neglect she deserves to be mentioned as

 Kamala Das (1934-2009) is a highly unorthodox poet, equals D H Lawrence in

 Suniti Namjoshi (1941- is a feminist and a poet; raises controversial and

 Gauri Deshpande (1942- ) explores man – woman relationship and responds to

 Mamta Kalia(1942- ) belongs to the school or the group of her great

 Meena Alexander(1951 - ) lives abroad; an Indian poet of the international

 Chitra Banerjee (1956 -) is a celebrated Indian woman poet, residing in

 Sujata Bhatt (1956- ) is an internationally recognised poet; she resides in

 Smita Agarwal (1958-) is a contemporary poet with a couple of collections ,

 Neelam Saxena Chandra (1969 - ) employs two languages to express herself.

 Tishani Doshi (1975 - ) is a promising and recognised poet with a couple of

 Meena Kandasawy (1984 -) is a practising and passionate poet who

1.7 LETS SUM UP

1.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. What are the major themes of Indian English Poetry?

1.9 SUGGESTED READINGS

After going through this unit, you will be able to:

2.2 KAMALA DAS’S LEGACY

2.3 THEMES IN KAMALA DAS’ POEMS-

2.3.1 Kamala Das: A Rebel against Patriarchy

In “An Introduction” she rebels against those who ask her

Why not leave

The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

“Dress in sarees, be girl

Kamala Das has made an honest treatment of prevalent orthodox male

‘’ He talks, turning a sunstained

Uneven teeth gleam.’’

2.5 THE OLD PLAYHOUSE

‘’You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her

You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured

“To break saccharine into your tea and

“Cowering Beneath your monstrous ego I ate

It must seek at last

2.6 THE LOOKING GLASS

2.7 THE STONE AGE

“You build round me a shabby room,

2.8 THE SUNSHINE CAT

2.9 THE PRISONER

As the convict studies

“O what does the burning mouth

2.11 CRITICAL APPRECIATION

The speaker finally describes herself as;

2.12 FEMINIST ASSERTIONS IN KAMALA DAS’S POEMS

Feminism is a recent literary phenomenon and generally centring on a women’s

A number of earliest practitioners of feminism like Marry Wollstonecraft ( The

I don’t know politics, but I know the names of those in power,

I was child, and later they