TUTORIAL: CC3

COMPARE AND CONTRAST BETWEEN “BRAVELY FOUGHT THE

QUEEN” AND “WHERE THERE’S A WILL”.

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ROLL NUMBER: 327
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SUBJECT: ENGLISH HONOURS
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30.05.2023

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Contents
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................4

PATRIARCHY IN BRAVELY FOUGHT THE QUEEN.............................................................5

PATRIARCHY IN WHERE THERE’S A WILL.........................................................................6

CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO PLAYS...........................................................................7

CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................8

REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................9

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ABSTRACT

Wading through the tempestuous waters within which our society is drowning, is India’s first
Sahitya Akademi award-winning dramatist, Mahesh Dattani. He is a humanist who uses his
multifaceted personae as a weapon in his fight against inhumanity. Dattani sees in society
what others wish to ignore. His works are a plea for humane treatment of homosexuals,
equality towards women and moreover equal rights for every small section of society
including the hijras. His plays question all kinds of discrimination, be it religious prejudice,
gender discrimination or even homosexuality. Many of his plays deal with familial issues
wherein the family members are trapped in social constraints and struggle to wrestle out of
societal pressures. Dattani’s plays expose the violence of our private thoughts and the
hypocrisy of our public morals. His work conveys his political beliefs without being
instructive or revolting against the subjects of recognition and power struggles, whicm run
right through all his plays. This study is text-oriented and thus compares two of Mahesh
Dattani’s texts based on the above themes “Bravely Fought the Queen” and “Where There’s
a Will”.

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INTRODUCTION

Mahesh Dattani exposes every aspect of existence as though it were preoccupied with gender
issues. Mahesh represents all of society's outcasts. He asserts that although "all of us" desire
to fit in with society and the mainstream, "we must recognize that it is a forced harmony."
Authors and philosophers have consistently worked to reposition women in the patriarchal
system in post-colonial India. In terms of Indian society, a long-standing tradition of treating
and worshipping a "goddess" predominated. She was treated like a dead doll with no free will
or choice under this cover. Gender was employed as an analytical category in the early 1970s
to make a distinction between biological sex differences and the ways in which they influence
behaviours and competencies, which are then classified as either "masculine" or "feminine."
The argument is made that biological differences' real physical or mental repercussions had
been exaggerated to sustain the mechanism of a patriarchal society. The sex/gender
distinction is therefore upheld. Recent literature on sex and gender, however, argues that the
meanings associated with sex differences are socially created and dynamic, in that we
comprehend them and attach them to these biological 'facts' differently within our particular
cultural, historical, and contextual settings.

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PATRIARCHY IN BRAVELY FOUGHT THE QUEEN

The title of all three acts of the play, 'Women', 'Men', and 'Free for All', is of high
significance. The world of Act One shows the female world that has been pushed to the
periphery and is pitted against the business world of Act Two for 'Men'. The Third Act is a
brilliant creation of Dattani as a playwright as it exposes the characters and it is in Act Three,
the two worlds of men and women clash and collapse. The play’s First Act vividly delineates
the claustrophobic situation of the women in the seemingly affluent and civil household. The
title of the play 'Bravely Fought the Queen' is much significant, as it suggests that a woman
who ought to be the chief female character of the play, fights against the dominance done
upon her by her tyrannical husband and a bedridden mother-in-law. This play while exposing
the hypocrisy of society, dwells upon the subaltern position of women and those men who fall
outside Mahesh Dattani's play "Family" seeks to present women's exploitation by the male.
Alka is ill-treated by her husband and brother Praful, Jiten is violent and drunkard with his
wife Dolly, and the women are unhappy and disappointed at their claustrophobic spaces.
Dattani shows that these women attempt to fight against the patriarchal domination of men,
but their efforts are not only muted by the chauvinistic men but they are also denied love and
freedom of expression. Alka is a fine example of this, as she bravely fought against the
patriarchal system just as Queen Lakshimibai fought valorously against the colonizers of the
country.

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PATRIARCHY IN WHERE THERE’S A WILL

In his debut play, Where There’s a Will, Dattani takes up the issues of patriarchal supremacy.
Indian society has inherited strong patriarchal values from our predecessors, which are the
bone and flesh of our present modernized traditional families. Fathers are keen to have sons,
as they believe they carry forward the family’s name. This subjugation denies the son any
opportunity for independent growth and confidence. Dattani exposes the futility of this
patriarchal code, which is not acceptable in the post-colonial arena. The plot revolves around
the life of a rich businessman, Hasmukh Mehta, who dies in the first scene and then stays on
the stage as a ghost. He ruled his household when alive, and has attempted to do so after his
death through the device of his will. The victim of patriarchy is not only a woman but also a
man. The most important details in this text are that Hasmukh "forgoes an opportunity to
improve his interpersonal relationships" and that he intends to govern the fate of his family
members even after his death through his will. According to the will, a Trust is to be formed
and administered by his mistress, Kiran Jhaveri, and his son will not inherit his father's
money and property until he is forty-five. The ghost of Hasmukh comes to know about the
mind of his family members and also of Kiran Jhaveri, and all the characters are liberated
from the stranglehold of their past. The patriarch sees the palace of patriarchy demolished.

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CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO PLAYS

Where There’s A Will has been read and criticised on different levels. As Sita Raina observes
that the play has several interesting aspects. Dattani, the playwright, described it as the
exorcism of the patriarchal code. Women—be it daughter-in-law, wife or mistress— are
dependent on men and this play shows what happens when they are pushed to the edge. The
play, Where There’s A Will, is also interpreted in regard to the passive instinct of the rich and
the moneyed in society. Some critics still view the play in terms of marital profligacy, and
still, a few opine that the play is about the chaos reigning in a family due to the emotional and
temperamental incompatibility of the members. Some regard that individuals have literally no
alternative to living in forced harmony. The play hence appears to be rich and complex since
it has different layers of meanings. In this play, Dattani has thus depicted an important aspect
of patriarchal dominance.

Bravely Fought The Queen was a completely different kind of play, much dark, starkly
serious and violent, first performed at the Sophia Bhabha Hall, Mumbai on 2 nd August 1991.
The play traces the life of two sisters married to two brothers, living side by side in identical
bungalows. It was partly inspired by Dattani’s observation while visiting the home of a
Gujarati family that the women of the household were always dressed up but had nowhere to
go. A powerful domestic tragedy, this play highlights the circumstances of a woman fighting
against all the odds that the forces of the patriarchy have bestowed upon her. As a lively, and
provocative play, it charters through the emotional, financial and sexual intricacies of a
modern-day Indian family. The play is a cry for the acceptance of shifting Indian values and it
portrays the clash between the traditional and contemporary cultures that has created a new
social scenario. To some critics, the play deals with the issue of rapidly multiplying
consumerism and gender relations in the contemporary urban scenario with its belief in a
global world. It focuses on the advertising sector and its impact on class and gender relations.
According to some, in this play, Dattani presents the ways in which the exploitation of
middle-class domestic women is couched in terms of culture and refinement. It presents a
classical example of the way in which the process of female silencing is at work in the
polished ambience of the drawing room in an urban set-up. In this play, the questions of

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gender, sexuality and identity are raised. The unspoken is voiced, and the unseen is made
visible.

CONCLUSION

Mahesh Dattani's plays are about the questioning of dominant gender roles. He focuses on
issues of marginalised identities as well as aspects of hegemony and chauvinism present in
our daily lives. His main themes include communalism, personal prejudice, class, female
infanticide, domestic abuse, patriarchy, identity crisis, homosexuality, discrimination on
grounds of gender and the peculiar positions of hermaphrodites in Indian society. He has a
good theatre sense and the ability to bring a lot of equanimity to his handling of tricky issues.
His plays are the essence of what contemporary urban life in India is about for so many
middle and upper-middle-class Indians. His greatness lies in his belief that theatre is an art
with a function.

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REFERENCES

Works consulted:
1. Dattani, Mahesh. Bravely Fought The Queen, Penguin India, 2006
2. Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays: Vol. 1. Vol. 1. Penguin UK, 2000.
3. Chaudhuri, Asha Kuthari. Mahesh Dattani: An Introduction. Foundation Books, 2005.

Works cited:
1. Kumar, Tribhuwan. "The culture of patriarchy, gender bias, and class discrimination
in Mahesh Dattani’s Tara." Linguistics and Culture Review 5.S1 (2021): 60-69.
(http://lingcure.org/index.php/journal/article/download/1314/66)
2. Prakash, T. Arul. "Patriarchal Hegemony in Mahesh Dattani's Select
Plays." International Refereed e-journal of Literary Exploration 2 (2014): 314-317.
(http://www.researchscholar.co.in/downloads/46-t.-arul-prakash.pdf)
3. Singh, Jasdeep. "Rise of Women by Breaking the Stereotypes and Patriarchal
Oppression in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought The Queen." Language in India 18.5
(2018).
(http://www.languageinindia.com/may2018/jasdeepbravelyfoughtdattaniplay.pdf)
4. Monappa, Buneti Siddalingappa, and Kv Lamani Mukund. "The Depiction Of Male
Egoism And Autocracy Of The Patriarchy In Mahesh Dattani’s Where There's a
Will." Research Journal of English Language and Literature, vol3 3 (2015): 422-426.
(http://www.rjelal.com/3.3.15/422426%20BUNETI%20SIDDALINGAPPA
%20MONAPPA.pdf)

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