Marital Discord Leading to Awakening of the Spirit of Feminism in the Protagonists of ‘Ancient Promises’ and ‘Afterwards’
Abstract:
The disillusionment that women face in traditional marriages and their attempts to establish individuality and freedom of existence is discussed in the paper. The institution of marriage entraps women to the confines of patriarchy and objectifies them to uphold its honour. The protagonists of ‘Ancient Promises’ and ‘Afterwards’ dismiss the marital agreement and take the call for self-expression and fulfilment in their life. The response of patriarchy to such an announcement of dissolution from the women’s side is studied in detail. A woman’s right to happiness and fulfilment of her ambitions cannot be harnessed forever within the confines of any institution. It accumulates enough power to break the shackles sooner or later. The age-old struggle for a space and acceptance of women in the marital family is examined in the novel. Women are taken for granted and most of them put –up with it silently. As the only alternative to establish their identity and existence, Misra’s woman characters take to education and self-assertion. Jaishree Misra examines closely the fabric of marriage as an institution, its structure and allegiance to patriarchy to analyse the reasons of women’s subjugation.
Key words: marriage, family, motherhood, claustrophobia, education, divorce, honour, patriarchy.
In Ancient Promises the struggle to keep the family unit from falling apart is elaborately portrayed by Jaishree Misra. Janu painfully realizes that those ancient promises which were solemnly made during her marriage with Suresh were not duly kept. She tries her best to make her marriage work. She tried to make friends with every member of the Maraar family, but failed miserably.
The novel begins with the line, “my marriage ended today”. Janu introspects to find out what went wrong in the marriage. She evaluates her life to find out how and why her marriage has failed. “Had it been my job, as a woman, to use little wiles and guiles and to have made him interested in me?” (Ancient Promises,164).
Firestone Shulamith says about women’s attempts to keep men attracted to them, in The Dialectics of Sex, “In my own case, I had to train myself out of that phony smile, which is like a nervous tic on every teenage girl. And this meant that I smiled rarely, for in truth, when it came down to real smiling, I had less to smile about. My 'dream' action for the women's liberation movement: a smile boycott, at which declaration all women would instantly abandon their 'pleasing' smiles, henceforth smiling only when something pleased them”. (Firestone Shulamith, 90)
It is considered as a skill that women should possess especially in the Indian context. Woman should always have a pleasant and a smiling countenance in order to keep the men folk attracted and interested in them. Janu regrets when she doubts whether it was this failure that made her marriage fall apart.
Janu’s conjugal relation with Suresh was one sided. For her “It felt awkward to be kissed by a mouth that had not had very much to say to me up to that point. I tried to quell the feeling of revulsion that rose in my chest. And decided I was no nearer either to feeling loved or to wanting to love” (Ancient Promises, 87) Even after completing a year at the Maraar’s house, Janu strongly feels that she is not a member of the Maraar family. She says, “…however hard I tried, I wasn’t to be one of them. But it still didn’t stop me from trying” (Ancient Promises, 109). She remembers her mother’s words, “…When you get married you only get half a man, the other half you have to make” (Ancient Promises, 299).
We see Janu’s motherhood devoid of any respect at her in-law’s house. She expected to gain acceptance in the Maraar’s house with the birth of a child. , “perhaps, having a child would solve my problems more easily than a BA and a job” (Ancient Promises, 113). She expected to win the favour of her mother-in law Mrs. Padmaja and others who would shower endearment on the newborn. Janu had expectations on her baby: “…I could see already that she was going to be my Transformer of Bad Things to Good. My potential best friend.” (Ancient Promises,116). But this dream of Janu was shattered with the birth of Riya –a mentally and physically disabled child. “Their rejection of me, though hurtful, was something I’d been able to rationalize. But Riya? She was their flesh and blood” (Ancient Promises, 131). When her Riya was compared to Sathi’s children and was asked to be keep her away from public gaze, Janu’s becomes emotionally upset. She was asked to leave Riya to the maid Thanga’s care while attending a marriage. This was beyond what Janu could tolerate and she breaks open to speak which shakes the Maraar household as it was for the first instance when a woman has ever raised voice there.
Elisa Albert, in her work, The Book of Dahlia says about the patriarchal attitude towards women’s emotions as: “For as long as wimmin have had the temerity to experience feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, and deep resentment, patriarchal society has denied them these feelings, and, in fact, punished them heartily for feeling anything at all.” Janu was unable to remain silent and docile and this she realizes was the first reason that her marriage broke. (Elisa Albert, 165)
Her discord at the Maraar family is also one of that with patriarchy and its agents too. Divorces become a central concern in Misra’s novels and are often criticized for it. Janu’s wifehood and motherhood are simultaneously both abstract and realistic concepts on which depends her existence as a woman. It is also a struggle for space which is closely connected to the reality of her existence. Janu’s non-conformist behaviour and emotions offend the Maraar’s sense of propriety.
Complete undoing of what Janu has been at her parental house is demanded at the Maraar’s place. She is ridiculed for her upbringing, language, and manners. This becomes detrimental to her being and she feels suffocated. Mrs. Padmaja finds faults with Janu’s sophistications, jewellery, ignorance towards certain traditional customs, inability to wash and dry a blouse properly etc. She never misses a chance to ridicule Janu and her ways in front of other members of their family. This claustrophobic atmosphere at the Maraar’s compels Janu to walk out of her marriage. Every individual requires a physical and mental space to be oneself and enjoy one’s existence. The denial of this space at the Maraar’s was the indirect and immediate reason for Janu’s frustration at Suresh’s house. The sense of being supervised at every moment creates a feeling of repulsion and Janu feels trapped inescapably.
Her indifferent husband considered it not his responsibility to attend to her when she was pregnant. He believed that his role is over now and his mother and sister can take over the remaining requirements of Janu. As per Janu’s grandmother, Suresh’s family in spite of their flaws, were respectable and upright people to which Janu retaliates “What had happened to Kerala’s proud old matrilineal Nair tradition? When women ruled their homesteads... and got rid of the men who did not live up to their standards?” (Ancient Promises, 215)
Ancient Promises depict a woman’s dealings with the stress to which she is subjected to in a male dominated society. Though a little late, Janu was bold enough to realize the importance of education and self-reliance. She amassed her inner strength and at the stark of the night equipped herself to a graduate degree. She was ambitious about her life and was not ready to be a victim of the orthodox traditions of society. She finds out a new direction to her life and breaks apart from the set norms with which she could not come into terms.
Suresh never gives the essential emotional support to Janu at his house. He opts to be away with his business tours and contented with his stiff whiskey. It is this emotional emptiness and alienation which ultimately prompted Janu to seek it elsewhere and reach back to her teenage crush-Arjun. Janu manages to get a diploma in special education which was important to both Janu and Riya. It was liberation for both of them.
Janu makes the final decision only after she has tried all possible ways to befriend the Maraar family. Their indifference towards her daughter was more hurtful to her and she could no longer hold on to the claustrophobic household and determines to move out. With the support of her mother and grandmother Janu moves abroad for her education leaving Riya at her mother’s care.
When Janu said “Suresh I want a divorce”, (Ancient Promises, 217) Suresh’s response was strange. It was too much a dishonour to him that he tries to convince Janu and her family that she has gone mentally sick. “I could not believe my ears…Treatment...Help? I started to struggle out of Suresh’s grip as his plan dawned on me, he was trying to convince everyone I was mentally ill! It was preferable to have people sympathize over a wife who was mad than to bear the shame of one who wasn’t mad but wanted to leave him!”(Ancient Promises, 225).Janu tried her best to sound sane “It is not madness, I am not mad, believe me…” (Ancient Promises, 225)
Suresh puts her in the care of Dr. Krishna Menon who kept her medicated-on sedatives for months. It was Janu’s mother’s timely interference that made her free from hospitalization and was taken to home care at Alleppy where she recovered gradually. With the support of these two women Janu prepares her ground to fly to the UK for higher education. It was obviously Janu’s credit that she could manage a scholarship from a trust that would sponsor her for the same. When she was discussing this while at the Maraar’s, she was considered out of her wits again. We find Janu saying, “It’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it? Janu and her silly scholarship. Well, I’ve got the scholarship and I intend to go. And Riya will go with me…!”(Ancient Promises, 224)
‘Afterwards’ as the title indicates is a novel on what happened before and after Maya’s decision to put an end to her marriage. Though she had her schooling in a metro city like Bangalore, she was not equipped with a formal education to support her for life. Her father feels insulted when she elopes with Rahul. The family reputation of the Pulayil Vermas is hurt and his honour questioned.
Marriage becomes a tool to condition women to the confines of patriarchy which possesses and exchanges them as tokens of its honour. Maya sardonically states about Govind’s concern for her as “Good-looking girl, good family, convent educated…but once he got me, he didn’t know what on earth to do with me!” (Afterwards,56). While it was forceful hospitalization and tagging as ‘madness’ that was meted out to Janu in Ancient promises, it was symbolic honour killing in Afterwards. Their decision to divert from the marriage and choose a path of happiness and self-fulfilment was beyond what patriarchy could permit.
Before her decision to break her marriage, Maya was a gorgeous and docile house wife who was pleasingly set in a golden cage. Not even her parents ever considered that she could have a problem with Govind who was capable of providing anything that she would ever need. Maya says, “But what they want to see is that I live in a nice house, have a nice car, a husband who gives me everything. They don’t want to see the other side of that” (Afterwards,55). Maya had the same problem that has no name, the problem which Betty Freidan explains in The Feminine Mystique when she writes, “A twenty -three-year old mother in blue jeans said: I ask myself why I’m so dissatisfied. I've got my health, fine children a lovely new home enough money, my husband has a real future as an Electronics engineer” (Freidan Betty, 10)
Maya once talks to Rahul about her plan to do a course in interior design and leave Govind when she would be in a position to support herself and Anjali. She says “Well, he can’t control me forever. He has to learn that” (Afterwards,48). There are instances of domestic violence in the novel ‘Afterwards’. Govind is suspicious of Maya and her good looks. He never permits her to socialize or have connections outside the family circle. He adores her and considers her as a possession, may be like his huge mansion or the esteem car. Govind’s domineering and suspicious nature is evident when Maya talks to Rahul over the boundary wall. Rahul observes: “She seemed to have stopped listening to some reason, and the smile had suddenly vanished from her face. I followed her gaze out of the gate where a white Esteem was approaching the house from the road. ‘My husband,’ she whispered as she moved quickly away from the wall, taking the errant hosepipe with her. Something seemed to have closed shut on that pretty face as she stepped away (Afterwards, 17)
At another instance, when Govind saw Rahul going out from his house he threatens her. Later Maya says about this to Rahul, “He …saw…he saw you…coming out of the gate…he was furious…. He …he waited for Karthu to leave and …then…he hit me, Rahul…He said he would …destroy my…face…that was what was causing all the problems” (Aterwards,64). This is a setting in the narrative that testifies the reason and disagreement between Maya and her husband. It is an extremely translucent instance and explains how woman counter conjugal ferocity on a regular basis. Gloria Steinem in her essay Revolution From within: A book of Self Esteem says “Patriarchy requires violence or the subliminal threat of violence in order to maintain itself... The most dangerous situation for a woman is not an unknown man in the street, or even the enemy in wartime, but a husband or lover in the isolation of their own home." (Steinem Gloria, 259-261)
Maya finds fulfilment in life by being away from Govind. She has all the reason to be happy in her life in UK with Rahul and little Anjali. In a most unlikely turn of events, we find Maya’s father disowning her for leaving her husband. Madhava Verma conducts the funeral rites of his daughter even when she is alive and this means that he and his family consider her as good as dead. This takes our attention to how women’s choice and decisions concerning their future, happiness and sexuality is related to men’s honour and detrimental to the power structure of society. Women’s freedom of choice and self- reliance is traditionally viewed as a threat to social institutions like marriage. As a wounded patriarch, Maya’s father disowns her. A daughter declaring herself free from an established marriage brings nothing but disgrace to the family and is no better than a dead daughter. Rahul observes:
“Maya’s parents conducted her death rites as is sometimes done when a person has brought great shame and dishonour on the name of an old and noble family. Red rice and gingili seeds are placed on banana leaves as incantations for the dead are chanted. When it’s done for dead, it is meant to bring peace to the soul. But when it’s done for the living it is to do the very opposite, I believe” (Afterwards, 70).
The funeral rites conducted by Madhava Verma is symbolic of the honour killing which is rampant in many parts of India. When Maya comes to know about this, it shakes her very being but she is unable to comprehend the seriousness of her error as interpreted by the society. She expected the endorsement of her family and was sure that her mother would accept her at any stage. Her father Mr. Verma was a typical patriarch who would not forgive her for defiling him and his ancestral repute. Maya once translated her father’s letter to Rahul as: “Go and live your life in the way you have to. You do not exist for us anymore. We will forget you ever existed, just as you will have to forget about us. The Maya, who was once a child of this family is now dead” (Afterwards, 242-243).
Misra’s heroines are educated middle class women who value tradition. They consciously make efforts to improve their relative low position in family and society by exploring their own potentials. The longing for emotional fulfilment and partnership triggers them to take bold decisions and lead independent lives. The male superiority and disgrace of subordination make them docile, but only temporarily. Their ultimate feminine spirit and sensibility make them find a way out of the invisible confines marked by orthodox customs.
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