The Suicide - Kamala Das

 

 The Suicide

[alert-success] The Suicide - Kamala Das

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      Kamala Das, a pen name to Madhavikutty , an Indian writer, mainly focuses with feminist subjects, and her poet The Suicide is not an exception to this case, as this deals with the sufferings of Indian women by the patriarchal society, and also focuses on the freedom of women. Women is a body without any soul and just drifting on the sea, facing many tides of struggles in their life, all alone with hardly get love by others. This poem stress the idea that women  have not allowed to get their own decision, even for their death they have to get the permission for their spouses. So she is all alone and disguises herself with the happy face.  

            Bereft of soul 

            My body shall be bare.

           Bereft of body

           My soul shall be bare.

          Which would you rather have

         O kind sea?

         A woman is creature with the body devoid of souls, soul is the one which gives strength and identity to the particular person, without it they will be a person without any opinion or voice. According to Kamala Das Indian women are similar to this, they do not have any voice, not even a self identity for them. As the body without soul rotten like, most women are rotting day by day without their identity. Because the opinion of a particular person only can makes him to find his identity. So women are just drifting on the sea, unless they possess the voice of paddle they can not rove in the sea and make their desired destination.

             I have enough courage to die,

            But not enough.

            Not enough to disobey him

            Who said: Do not die

        The soul can gives the courage to anyone, but women are devoid of this attribute makes them to obey their counterparts despite having the enough courage to end their life. It’s cruel to apply idea of giving up one’s life, but according to the poetess, male domination is even more cruel than this. So in order to imply the effect of male domination, Kamala Das choses the suicide as her weapon. Not promotes the suicide but to manifest the utmost cruelty of patriarchal domination. In the middle of all these tides, a woman has to pose, pretend, and act role of happy women. A woman is a toy in the hand of a child and to act in accordance with the child’s will, so this makes her to attain the identity to herself in the society.

            I want to be simple

           I want to be loved

           And

           If love is not to be had,

           I want to be dead, just dead.

         In the midst of desperation, a woman just simply wants others love, but it is not attainable to her, which has been in the state of denial. So she is very desperate at the level of desiring the death. Then she feels nostalgia and reminds of her childhood days in her grandmother’s house, which is the time she had felt loved, but that palace has green pond, that indicates the lack of human stay. So she is now alone, devoid of love. The only relief she has now is swimming, and this can make her to forget about the struggles of the sea. Despite this she can not forget the man who hurts her,

            But, when he did not love,

            Believe me,

            All I could do was to sob like a fool.

        Woman is a fool, who lacks the ability to eliminate the counterpart who has been hurting her in many ways, but just sobs. For a woman, who is incapable of voicing out, in the desperation for love, just longs for a person who is always cruel to her.