SHELLEY AND BHARATHIDASAN AS FEMINISTS

 

DR. V. AYOTHI

 

            ROMANTIC AGE PREVAILED in England in the beginning of the nine­teenth century and in India from the birth of the twentieth century. Most of the Romantic poets of both the coun­tries, being products of their milieu, could not free themselves fully from the vital social problems. As a result, the Romantic Movement ceased to be a mere literary movement and the ro­manticists very much felt the need to change the conservative feudal set up which was allergic to new changes. They waged a relentless war against oppressors and identified themselves with the suffering proletarians. Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley supported the French Revolution hoping that it would bring liberty to mankind. Bharathi and Bharathidasan partici­pated in the Indian Freedom Struggle cherishing the hope that it would re­sult in political and domestic freedom. Thus the Romantic poets revolted not merely against political tyranny, but also against the social institutions which set bounds to the growth of humanity.

 

            Women's liberation is one among the several aspects of their social con­cern. In the feudal set up of the soci­ety, women were not given equal lights and they were always considered to be inferior to men. Tyrants and landlords used them only as puppets in their harems to pacify their lust. In domes­tic life also they were considered to be creatures meant for bearing and rear­ing children. Hence, a new movement called “Feminism” was started in the European countries with the object of liberating womanhood. The Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Byron and, Shelley also felt an urgent need to emancipate women from their enslave­ment. They started singing the doc­trine of sexual liberty as if divinely inspired. Their literary works were dominated by women characters of new types who completely differed from the female characters depicted in the classical literary works.

 

            The feminist movement in India grew very strong in the era of the Indian Freedom Struggle, Bharathi, Bharathidasan and Kavimani, the chil­dren of the Struggle and the Reforma­tion Movement, also created a number of revolutionary women characters as champions and torch-bearers of the feminist movement and through them expressed their ideas about sexual equality more emphatically and clearly than their English counterparts. They never missed an opportunity to propa­gate their cherished ideals and op­timistic vision about the role of women in the construction of a brave new world.

 

            Edmund Blunden, Shelley’s biographer, considers Cythna, the heroine of “The Revolt of Islam” as the first revolutionary woman in Eng­lish poetry. She is the type that mod­em revolutions have made familiar, the woman in the heart of storm, at the head of the crowd, diffusing the joy of devotion. She feels equal of her man like Bharathi’s “Modem Woman” and the several heroines of Bhara­thidasan. Cythna was lightly consid­ered as a child of God, “sent down to save/Women from bonds and death ...” [“Laon and Cythna” IX:viii]. She educates the womenfolk and work with them for their liberty:

 

Thus she doth equal laws and

            justice each

To woman, outraged and.

            polluted long:

Gathering the sweetest fruit in

            human reach

For those fair hands now free

                                    [IV: xxi]

 

Laon, the hero of the poem, empha­sises the need for sexual equality in the following lines:

 

Never will peace and human

            nature meet

Till free and equal mail and

            woman greet

Domestic peace: and ere this

            power can make

In human hearts its calm and

            holy seat,

This slavery must be broken.

                        (II: xxxvii 11, 994-98)

 

He also asks a rhetoric question:

 

            Can man be free if woman be a slave?

                        [II: x 1 iii. 1:1045]

 

In “Queen Mab” Shelley writes:

 

Woman and man, in confidence

            and love.

Equal and free and pure together

            trod

The mountain-paths of virtue ...

                        [9: 11. 89-91]

 

Similar sentiments are expressed strongly by Bharathidasan in “Can­civiparvathattin caral” through the woman protagonist. Denying her lover Kuppan’s chauvinistic atitude, the heroine Vanji asks,

 

            Do you mean that women need no freedom of speech?

            Do you impeach the race of women as worse than dust?

 

As a mouthpiece of the poet, Vanchi very emphatically remarks that mere political freedom would do no good if it is not clubbed with the liberation of women and if women are not treated as equals of men:

 

As long as women are enslaved

            here

Freedom of the nation will be

As impossible as capturing a

            unicorn :

Till you treat women as dumb

            creatures

Men will only be like all­

            withdrawing tortoises

If women are made mere

            senseless dunces

The crops of the field [children]

            will also be like that.

 

            His narrative poems like Kudumba Vilakku, Pandian Parisu, Kurinchi Thittu, Kannaki Kappiam and Tamizhachiyin Katthi centre around heroic women characters who are in no way inferior to their male counter­parts.

 

            Bharathidasan is of the opinion that real liberation of women is pos­sible only if they are educated. Through education, women can get social awareness, demand their rights and contribute their share in the making of a nation by shouldering all types of responsibilities like men. Education alone can, according to Bharathidasan, make women broad­minded. Therefore, he appeals to the parents to educate their children in several places in his works.

 

            Uneducated women, due to ignorance, are mostly superstitious. Bharathidasan, who believes that real education begins at the cradle before a formal beginning is made at school, advises the mother to educate her children through meaningful and ra­tional lullabies which will help them grow amidst a healthy environment with good thoughts. In his poem “Pen Kulanthai Thalattu” (Lullaby to the Female Child), he advises the female child to guard herself against the superstitious consciousness that pre­vails around her without any relevance to the practical life:

 

You are the light

Rush to dispel

The darkness of casteism

................

They apply Kumkum to cowdung

And call it god!

Blush at this act and sleep

Laugh at them, close your eyes

            and sleep.

 

In Isaiamuthu, the father of a little girl is shown to make his child realise the importance of education and therefore advises her to stop being a truant:

 

Having combed and decked your

            head with flowers­

“Go to school, dear” said your

            mother

Why, like a statue do you stand

            there?

Why so much tears you shed?

Can education be priced and

            bought?

By regular study alone could it

            be got.

Isn’t education the plantain of

            mountain?

Go my dear daughter and eat it

            to your content.

If you remain uneducated,

I will be ridiculed by the people

            of the town.

Run before the clock runs, my

            dear,

With the girls of next door.

It may be difficult for you to

            learn now,

But the more you study the more

            you will understand

Tamil Nadu, surrounded by

            seas,

Demands, in love, women’s

            education.

 

            (“Father to his daughter” in Isaiamuthu. I. p. 50.)

 

            Women have to get educated first; and then they must educate others, particularly their children. Today we find that only women are fit to teach children at the elementary level. Even at the level of higher edu­cation, women have already started playing a vital role like men.

 

            Shelley’s revolutionary woman Cythna fights for the fulfilment of the following ideals: “The awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and degradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the blood­less dethronement of their oppressors and the unveiling of the religious frauds by which they had been de­luded into submission: the tranquility of successful patriotism, and universal toleration of benevolence of true philosophy”. Shelley feels that the inner fire that enlightens her path of revolu­tion will certainly guide her to success. Cythna’s lover has kindled in her heart the sentiments of liberation and there­fore she remarks:

 

When I go forth alone, bearing

            the lamp

Aloft which thou hast kindled in

            my heart :

Millions of slaves from many a

            dungeon damp

Shall I leap in joy, as the

            benumbing cramp

Of ages leaves their limbs – no ill

            may harm

Thy Cythna even-truth its

            radiant stamp

Has fixed, as an invulnerable

            charm

Upon her children’s brow, dark

            falsehood to disarm.”

(“Revolt of Islam” II. X 1 iv. 11 1052-62 )

 

            Cythna desires to make this earth more beautiful by clothing it with science and poetry.

 

To make this Earth, our home,

            more beautiful,

And science, and her sister

            poesy,

Shall clothe in light the fields

            and cities of the free!

                        (V. 1 1. 5 11 2253-56)

 

            Like several of Bharathidasan’s women characters, Cythna stands for wisdom, truth, freedom and heroism who never fails to perform her domes­tic duties. Like Thangam, the heroine of Kudumba Vilakku, Cythna proves to be “the only source of tears and smiles” to Laon. When he talks about his wife Cythna, Laon says:

 

As mine own shadow was this

            child to me

A second self, far dearer and

            more fair:

                        (II. xxiv 874-75)

..............................she

Became my only friend, who had

            endued

My purpose with a wider.

            sympathy:

                        (II. xxxvi. 982-85)

 

            Bharathidasan demands equal rights for women. They must have the right to speak; the right to love; the right to live freely without any con­straints. Then only they can blossom, into fully grown and perfect, individu­als. He does not approve arranged marriages. He feels that love between man and woman alone must be con­sidered in determining the marriage. All other factors should not be allowed to spoil the life of youngsters. Bhara­thidasan specially appeals to the edu­cated woman to be very bold and choose the right man as her life-part­ner:

 

Oh, the educated woman, to you

            I would say:

Choose him whom you love as

            your spouse!

Even the horse kept in a lone

            stable

Has the right to neigh.

Why should a damsel blush and

            fear in her house.

Persuade your parents to the

            extent possible

With tears try to move their

            stone-like heart:

If still denied justice, free your­

            self from their clutches !

 

            Bharathidasan advises young woman to be obedient to her parents. If she is denied the right to choose her husband, she must try her level best to convince her parents and persuade them to accept her plea. However, if they still fail to concede her desire, she has no other option than to sever her relationship with them and get married with the man of her choice. He presents AmuthavalIi (in “Purathikavi”), Poongothai (in Ethir­paratha Multham) and Karkandu in a play with the same name as examples of bold lovers.

 

            While Bharathidasan accepts love and marriage, Shelley advocates free-love. In his notes on “Queen Mab”. Shelley emphatically says that “love withers under constraint: its very essence is liberty”. Bharathidasan insisted on the need for marriage be­tween a woman and man who love each other. But Godwin and Shelley considered the institution of marriage as a system of fraud. To them free­love, even at the risk of lust, is prefer­able. This concept of free-love goes against the very spirit of Tamil culture which adores a chaste woman. But Shelley remarks in his notes on “Queen Mab” that “a system could not well have been devised more studi­ously hostile to human happiness than marriage”. He points out in “Episychidion”:

 

I never was attached to that

            great sect.

Whose doctrine is, that each one

            would select

Out of the crowd a mistress and

            a friend,

And all the rest, though fair and

            wise, commend

To cold oblivion, though it is in

            the code

Of modem morals, and the

            beaten road

Which those poor slaves with

            weary steps tread,

........................................

                        (II. 149-55)

 

Narrow

The heart that loves, the brain

            that contemplates.

The life that wears, the spirit

            that creates

One object, and one form, and

            builds thereby

A sepulchre of its eternity.

                        (II. 170-75)

 

            He even goes to the extent of saying that “chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition...: it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness...” Bharathidasan is not prepared to admit this evil into ideal state. He considered chastity as a necessity to both men and women. He could never think of pre-marital and extra-marital relationship between men and women. He would not admit anything which would result in demor­alization of the society.

 

            His sincere and serious inquiry into the various problems of women needs to be discussed at length as they have not lost their relevance to­day. In his poems “Kulanthai Manat­thin Kotumai” and “Kaimai Kodua­mai”, he attacks child marriage and widowhood. While a seven-year-old widow longs for the love of her father, the cruel father spends all his time on his second wife. The plight of the girl is realistically and pathetically portrayed. He considers widowhood as a symbol of the narrow-mindedness of the orthodox people. Like men, women also must have the liberty to remarry. His poems entitled “Kaimai Thuyar” and “Kaimai Neekam” elaborately portray the pitiable condition of wid­ows - particularly young widows. “Mutat Thirumanam” deplores mar­riage, between an old man and a young woman. He calls it a foolish system meant to trap and enslave young women. He calls it a marriage of two bodies and not two souls. If the souls of the married people are not united. of what use is that marriage? He wants us to bury deep the social laws and traditions which permit such marriages.

 

            The poem “Mutat Thirumanam” depicts the feelings of a young, beautiful and loving bride who awaits her aged husband to wake up who un­mindful of her desires enjoys a sound sleep marked by running saliva and the sound of his snoring. Frustrated by such a meaningless life, the bride attempts to commit suicide. Such in­compatible marriages naturally tend to become futile.

 

            In his play Karkandu, the hero­ine very boldly escapes the accident of getting married with an old woman by boldly choosing a young street-singer as her husband. His “Puratchi Thirumanat Tittam” offers the readers an effective course in the procedure of rational marriages. (Vol. III. 21-­219)

 

            A woman character in “Mana Maratti”, decides to kill even her husband who, when reprimanded for his immoral life, attempts to murder her and kills their baby. She very boldly questions the validity of the law which is keen on punishing her for the murder. In the poem entitled “Penka­lin Nilai’“ [The Plight of Women], Bharathidasan argues for equal right for women in property and wealth.

 

            A typical ideal woman character of Bharathidasan, motivated by her interest in humanity and guided by an awareness of her poverty and physical weakness goes to hospital for sterilization operation. Her resolution is an example of her rational thinking who will never submit herself to the existing meaningless taboos (Bhara­thidasan, “Karuttatai Maruttuvamanaiy Oruttiyin Ventukoi” [Thenaruvi: Pumpuhar, 1978. p. 54]

 

            Bharathidasan and Shelley have depicted the plight of women with utmost sincerity. The ideals of femi­nism are spreading out far and wide under the auspices of several organizations and women are getting widely recognized as equals of men in every way. But in an underdeveloped coun­try like India majority of women, par­ticularly in the rural areas, have not risen up to play their right role in the society. Illiteracy is a great menace which confines women to unwanted traditional beliefs. Hence the bitter fact remains that women are not yet fully liberated. Women are still ill-treated and considered as inferior and de­pendent creatures and therefore they have certain peculiar problems in, the society unlike the “happy-go-lucky” men. However, partaking of the pro­phetic frenzy of Bharathidasan and Shelley, we might conclude with the hope that the day on which free men and women would greet each other is not far away.

 

Works Cited

 

Bharathidasan Kavithaikal. Vol. I, II. III, Madras: Pari Nilayam, 1975. Shelley The Complete Works of P.B. Shelley. Ed. Nevilee Rogers. Vol. I. II. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1975.

 

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