Assignment Code: MWG-008/AST/TMA-2022

Course Code: MWG-008

Assignment Name: Gender and Life Narratives

Year: 2022

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Note: The assignment contains essay type questions. You are required to attempt ANY ONE out of the two questions. Your response (including all parts) should be approximately 1500- 2000 words.

Q2) Go to a public library near your home. Pick up a book on women autobiography or biography. Critically analyze it from gender perspectives. Refer to Block 1 to discuss the terms, histories, forms, modes and theoretical challenges that the writer must have faced to get published.

Ans)  Martha Quest (1952) published by Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom tells the story of its protagonist Martha Quest who is a rebel throughout the story. It is the first book of the Children of Violence series and the story covers years from 1934 to 1938. Martha is an intelligent girl who observes everything with keenness. As she observes, the world seems to have gone awry. When the narrator introduces the readers to Martha, she is fifteen years old girl living in Africa with her parents who are working on African farms.

Martha is passionate, avid for self-knowledge and remains most of the times bitter and narrow-minded. As time passes, she being a rebel breaks this bondage of her home and moves towards the city to take a job as a typist. At the city, she encounters the life of what she is eagerly looking for. The story of Martha is autobiographical as it resembles Lessing's own experiences in Africa. It depicts the life in the veld, superficial atmosphere of racial discrimination and sophistication of life in the city. The novel is an autobiographical drawing upon Lessing's childhood memories, her involvement with politics and her concern towards social concerns.

The novels through its protagonist decry the oppression of black natives by white colonisers and want to dominate with their own culture in Africa. As time passes, Martha notices discrepancies of the white people who speak something else but in meaning meant something different. She observes the attitudes and behaviours of these white settlers towards the black natives, she feels to be unhappy and at the same time-displaced. She finds relief only in literature where she finds spiritual support to her soul. Martha uses these great books to shape her theory of the world.

Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian writer who has always been controversial throughout her life. The novel The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World was written in 1977 and has gained her good name and fame. The book is divided into four parts: The Mutilated Half, Women in History, The Arab Woman and Breaking Through. This book depicts the fight of Egyptian women with the patriarchal society. These women have suffered all their life and each man who came in their life used them only for their sexual gratification. Nawal El Saadawi has shown the sufferings and the agony of the common Arab women who become the victim of patriarchal society.

The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir is written by Sudha Koul. Koul is a Kashmiri writer. The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir is a memoir by Sudha Koul through she wants to motivate the women of Kashmir to pursue their dreams instead of being within the four walls they should come out and take part in different activities and should compete with men. Koul discusses that how she is motivated towards writing as a child and about the people who influenced her particularly by her grandmother and other eminent ladies of Kashmiri Literature like Lal Ded and Habba Khatoon. She talks about that how these ladies transcend all the customs, traditions and barriers in order to live a life of their own. The setting of this book is Kashmir, India. India is a land of different cultures and traditions. Religion is an important part of this country and many religions are practised in this country. The paper is an attempt to show how people are treated on the basis of customs and traditions by blaming religion. The protagonist of the memoir is a Hindu girl, who just dreams to have a successful life. Women in Kashmir are very intelligent but are mostly bound to the four walls of the society either in the name of religion or tradition or customs.

Analysis (terms, histories, forms, modes and theoretical challenges)

Martha Quest (1952) is a story about the protagonist Martha who is a rebel. She was introduced to her readers as a girl of fifteen living with her parents in African forms. She has been presented a girl of passions, less educated and selfexperienced. She remains always disappointed in her life both with her parents and with society. Martha's quest can be understood as: She was adolescent, and therefore bound to be unhappy; British, and therefore uneasy and defensive; in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, and therefore inescapable beset with problems of race and class; female and obliged to repudiate the shackled women of the past. She was tormented with guilt and responsibility and self-consciousness . . . (Lessing, Martha Quest 12)

She slowly and gradually breaks the chains and moves towards the town where she works as a typist. Here in this new world beyond the narrowness of her parents and surroundings begins to encounter the life she was so eager to know and to experience. In this story, the background is also Africa like other writings of Lessing. Martha Quest presents the African life in a tough manner in the forms, all-pervading and horrifying experiences of racial discrimination and antagonism. The novel further portrays artificial democracy and the highly sophisticated life of sub-urban.

Martha since from her childhood dreams of a free life but her mother always treats her little girl who can't do anything of her own. Mrs Quest always interfered in her matters of self-decisions. Her mother's interference hurts Martha; if she wants to dress of her own her mother doesn't allow her to do so as:

I'm sixteen, said Martha, between set teeth, in a stifled voice; and she looked towards her father, for help. But he quickly turned away, and measured medicine into a glass. 'My dear, nice girls don't wear clothes like this until...' 'I'm not a nice girl,' broke in Martha, and suddenly burst into laughter. Mrs Quest joined her in a relieved peal, and said, 'Really my dear, you are ridiculous'. (Lessing, Martha Quest 23)

Mrs Quest has great expectations from her daughter as she knows that she is quite intelligent and will make a good career. She often talks to her friend Mrs Van Rensberg about Martha and her career. She comments:

Mrs Quest aggressively stated that Martha was clever and would have a career. That the Dutchwoman could remain calm and good-natured on such occasions was proof of considerable inner strength, for Mrs Quest used the word 'career' not in terms of something that Martha might actually do, such as doctoring, or the law, but as a kind of stick to beat the world with, as if she were saying, 'My daughter will be somebody, whereas yours will only be married'. (6)

Everyone believes that Martha being an intelligent girl will do something worthy in her life but Martha is confused about her dreams and desires. Her only desire was to leave her home and to get a job in the town. She dreamed about this freedom day and night and finally leaves her home to do a job in the town. Mohammad Kaosar Ahmed in his research work “A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Reading of Martha's “Battle” with Mrs. Quest in Doris Lessing's Martha Quest” states the personality of Miss Martha as, “Lessing's Martha Quest, the first volume of The Children of Violence Series, presents an ordinarily curious and rebellious English adolescent, Martha Quest, coming of age against the colourful backdrop of the African landscape” (Ahmed 33). Martha's desire to get a job tormented her as she wants to free herself from her home and the veld. The quest for identity is shown in the research work as:

In order to establish an identity which she could be satisfied with she tries to break away from her mother. Because of this Martha makes decisions which have profound effects on her future: for example, instead of passing the matriculation exam and going to the university, Martha ends up moving into town to work as a secretary. (225)

She wants to explore her potential and her knowledge. She wants to be free from the cliches of her mother because her mother means domination. Her mother's influence means the influence of the society that always haunted her and made her irritable.

Tawhida Akhter in her book Women in Chains and Tears: Subjugation within Family has shown the status of women as:

Most of the societies are male-dominated where a woman is only supposed to be a mother, an ideal wife and a home-maker with multifarious roles attributed to her in the family. As a wife and mother, her service of sacrifice, tolerance and submissiveness are her required attributes. (Akhter 1) Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian writer who has always been controversial throughout her life. The novel The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World was written in 1977 and has gained her good name and fame. The book is divided into four parts: The Mutilated Half, Women in History, The Arab Woman and Breaking Through. This book depicts the fight of Egyptian women with the patriarchal society. These women have suffered all their life and each man who came in their life used them only for their sexual gratification. Nawal El Saadawi has shown the sufferings and the agony of the common Arab women who become the victim of patriarchal society.

In this novel, she talks about different women and herself how they all become the victim of society. She talks about herself at the beginning of the novel that when she was just six years of age, this dominance began in her life. She explains her situation as, “I was six years old that night when I lay in my bed, warm and peaceful in that pleasurable state which lies halfway between wakefulness and sleep, with the rosy dreams of childhood flitting by, like gentle fairies in quick succession”. (Saadwai 17).

In childhood when she was innocent and her mental level was also not build properly, she talks about the pain and agony that she feels when she was just a child. “I screamed with pain despite the tight hand held over my mouth, for the pain was not just a pain, it was like a searing flame that went through my whole body. After a few moments, I saw a red pool of blood around my hips” (Saadwai 20). She further talks about it as, “I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them” (Saadwai 20).

Tawhida Akhter in her book Women in Chains and Tears: Subjugation within Family has shown the status of women as, “Family is the smallest unit of society where all the members share their joys, sorrows and anxieties of life. Familial relations are important as they help us interact with the wider social world (Akhter 9). For a successful life, every relation in life is important. The woman is expected to play certain conventional roles, and her wishes and aspiration are not taken into consideration. The intensity of the protest conveyed in conversational idiom and rhythm, make it symbolic of the protest of all womanhood against the male ego. Life is full of miseries for them. “Now we know what it is. Now we know where our tragedy lies. We were born of a special sex, the female sex. We are destined in advance to taste of misery, and to have a part of our body torn away by cold, unfeeling cruel hands”. (Saadwai 21)

Nawal El Saadwai further goes on telling the stories of different women who face this discrimination since from their childhood. She talks of a lady who faced this discrimination since from the childhood, “Society had made me feel, since the day that I opened my eyes on life, that I was a girl,” (Saadwai 21). Nawal El Saadwai decides to write for the sake of those who can't speak up their feelings has been always known for her intensity and the reality that her writing possess. The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World is a memoir by Nawal El Saadwai where the writer traces the history of her emancipation. But when the book is read in-depth, it explored that it is not writer's story but also includes the stories of other women.. Saadwai through this memoir wants to motivate the women of Arab to pursue their dreams instead of being subjugated. Saadwai further explains her situation as, “Why did they favour my brother as regards food, and the freedom to go out of the house? Why was he treated better  than I was in all these matters? Why my brother could laugh at the top of his voice, move his legs freely, run and play as much as he wished” (Saadwai 21). She says that her family at some occasions felt the discrimination within her home. All this hurts the psychological setup of the individual. So the people are frustrated with their life.

Since the beginning of this world, literature has always remained as a medium to show the violence of the world. Most of the female writers through their writings have brought out the violence of the most civilized people in the world. They have witnessed the violence of the World Wars and the aftermaths of them. Akhter and Batta have pointed out it as, “At last we conclude by saying that both family and marriage have an important role to play in the positive psychological development of a personality otherwise it ruins the whole personality of a person”. (Akhter and Batta, p. 27-28) This violence cannot be ignored any more. It is through the works of Doris Lessing dared to confront this reality of violence.

The preference between children has also a negative effect in the mindset of an individual, “My duties were primarily to help in cleaning the house and cooking, in addition to studying since I was at school. The brothers however, the boys, were not expected to do anything but study”. (Saadwai 21). She further explains it as those women from childhood to the old age has to look after the family and does not have her own identity, “My grandmother then tiptoed to my grandfather's room where she would help him to remove his clothes and shoes, standing in front of him silently with lowered head”. (Saadwai 35)

Saadwai has always sincere, always true in her prose and fiction. As a daughter, she is expected to look after everyone. Saadwai explains the situation of a woman as, “The fist aggression experienced by the female child in society is the feeling that people do not welcome her coming into the world”. (Saadwai 26)

“There really is a beautiful country, called Cashmere (Kashmir), situated in Asia... Cashmere is not a mere name distinguishing a peculiar kind of shawl” (Arthur Brinkman, 11).

Kashmir is very famous for its singular beauty. Srinagar is the capital of Kashmir. Apart from its importance as a capital city, Srinagar is an important historical, political, cultural and educational centre and is home to press and media offices, major political parties and militant factions, nongovernment and civil society organisations and the University of Kashmir. Srinagar is also an important centre for Kashmir's Sufi traditions. The 1990 revolt centred on and was influenced by events in Srinagar.

Sudha Koul (1947- ) is a Kashmiri Pandit. She is the first women from Jammu and Kashmir to join Indian Administrative Services and is famous for the services of the rehabilitation of especially abled and physically challenged people. In 2010, the Government of India honoured her with Padma Shri, the highest civilian award. After marriage she went to US and stayed there. The book entitled “The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir” is a beautiful book known about the Kashmiri culture. This book depicts the story of the writer, her grandmothers, her mother, and other courageous women of the Kashmir.

In this book, the writer has beautifully shown the plight of Kashmiri women especially the condition of newly wedded girl. The misery of newly wedded girls is also narrated in the folk songs and folktales and the irony is that these folk songs are sung at the time of marriage and are cherished by woman only. The question arises why these songs of misery at the time of marriage? The answer cab be that these brides are mentally prepared that whatever will happen in her in laws house, she has to accept that and should not come back to her house back. Tawhida Akhter in a research article “A Case Study of Female Foeticide in Jammu and Kashmir” has portrayed the reasons behind discrimination in which the society paves a way for it. She states:

The reasons for high number of incidence of female foeticide in India especially in Jammu and Kashmir include a deep rooted traditional son preference, continued practice of dowry and concern for safety of the girl child and exploitation and abuse of women and girl children. Some facts related to the female foeticide are due to the biased attitude which is meted out to the women. Inadequate education is also its main cause. (Akhter, 188)

The Hindus and Muslims love each other a lot but can never eat in one another's utensils in the fear of ritual pollution. But still when it comes to culture then they forget their religion and share Kashmiriyat or Kashmirhood. According to Tinku, The Tiger Ladies is an elegy for the customs and the countless of an irrecoverable civilization. It also speaks about the 1965 war between India and Pakistan which had a great effect on Kashmir.

Tinku Vardarajan, a journalist in The Wall Street Journal (2002) in an article “An Elegy for Kashmir” talks about the culture of Kashmir. According to Tinku, the writer goes back on her Kashmiri youth in the 1950's and the early adulthood in the 1960's. She talks about the culture and tradition of Kashmir is in a mixed and confused mentality. She writes,

The Tiger Ladies is immensely, gracefully sad, an elegy for the customs and the courtliness of an irrecoverable civilization. Yet there is a sensuality running through her story . . . provided by Ms. Koul's devotion to Kashmiri cuisine and her description of how she has, through her kitchen, sought to keep alive the old Kashmiri ways. (Varadarajan, n.p.)

Lastly she talks about the Kashmiri Cuisine which actually was the only thing which was alive with her in the kitchen of US. According to Tinku, the food was where Koul kept her soul as in the end there is nothing left for her as far Kashmir is concerned except for food and memories. The memoir has shown Kashmiri tradition very well and has portrayed that how people are taught especially women to believe that misery is the part of life so they should not take it as a big thing and should be with their her in-laws house whatever the situation may be. In The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir, Sudha Koul got the empowerment when she focussed on her career rather than marriage. She achieved her aim in life and became independent. She was not against marriage but first she wanted to do something with her life. She married only when she wanted to and not on hearing the taunts of the society. Sudha Koul wants to develop this type of selfdependency in the girls. She wants the girls to get education so that they will be independent and achieve the highest goals in their lives.

Tawhida Akhter in a paper “A Case Study of Literacy and its development in India” talks about the purpose of education as, “Literacy is the ability to make and communicate meaning from and by the use of a variety of socially contextual symbols. Within various levels of developmental ability, a literate person can derive and convey meaning, and use their knowledge to achieve a desired purpose” (Akhter, 1).

Nawal El Saadawi formed the Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSW) in 1981. Saadawi struggled all her life, but she never stopped this struggle and even today she continues to be a writer, journalist and an advocate for women's rights.

After analysing these three novels by Doris Lessing, Sudha Koul and Nawal El Saadwai, it is quite clear that these novelists have made their protagonists their mouthpieces to bring out the true picture of their society in which they lived themselves. After analysing these novels, it clearly shows the autobiographical elements of these writers in these works.

Conclusion

Women are an inseparable part of the human race which vitalizes the process of nurturing the future generations. Despite playing such a significant role both inside and outside their homes, women are still regarded as the weaker sex. In every part of the world, women face a common problem based on gender discrimination within and outside the family. No matter what the culture or background is. They are labelled as weaker section of the society. Doris Lessing, Sudha Koul and Nawal El Saadwai, have shown various relationships that have fallen the victims of emotional fallacy. Throughout their life, they have struggled to maintain their identity as a woman, as a mother, as a writer and also as a political activist. Their female characters are emotionally and physically self-sufficient who have always committed towards their duty towards the service of mankind and have craved for love in their own life. The Grass is Singing, The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kashmir and The Hidden Face of Eve reflected those subjects which had been the taboos of that particular time in which the novels are published. Most of the times these female characters feel that there is a feeling that very soon a new type of women will emerge from them. These characters are frightened that they are moving towards madness. It leads towards other disorders like they lose grip in reality. The motive of these writers behind it is to bring their female characters to close towards the reality in their societies.

References:

1. Ahmed, Mohammad Kaosar. "A Psychoanalytic-Feminist Reading of Martha's “Battle” with Mrs. Quest in Doris Lessing's Martha Quest." Journal of Arts and Humanities 3.4 (2014): 32-39.

2. Akhter, Tawhida and Ajoy Batta. “Autobiographical Elements in Doris Lessing's Short Story A Home for Highland Cattle”. International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science, 2(5), 27- 28. 2017.

3. Akhter, Tawhida. “A Case Study of Female Foeticide in Jammu and Kashmir.” EXCEL International Journal of Multidisciplinary Management Studies 3.6 (2013): 188-194.

4. ... “A Case Study of Literacy and its Development in India.” ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 4.9 (2014): 1-9.

5. .... Women in Chains and Tears: Subjugation within Family. Chennai: Emerald Publishers. 2019. Print.

6. Brinkman, Arthur. 1996. The Wrongs of Cashmere. Srinagar: WEIS Publications. Original Edition, London. 1868. Print.

7. El Saadawi, Nawal, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World. Zed Books, 2007. Print.

8. Koul, Sudha. The Tiger Ladies. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2002. Print.

9. Lessing, Doris. Martha Quest. 1952. London: Flamingo, 1993. Print.

10. Malik, Insha. “The Tiger Ladies Book Review.”Kashmir Dispatch, 2011.Print.

11. Vardarajan, Tinku. “An Elegy for Kashmir”. The Wall Street Journal. 2002. Web. 15-07 2020.https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1022640452515139760.