Bapsi Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man: A Feminist Perspective

Transcription

1 Bapsi Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man: A Feminist Perspective Showkat Hussain Dar (Ex-student, Department of English, Central University of Kashmir) Country: India (Jammu and Kashmir) Abstract: Literature is a powerful tool in the hands of a creative writer to modulate and change the societal framework, and Bapsi Sidhwa through her extremely absorbing and most important work, Ice-Candy-Man, seeks to contribute to the progress of change that has already started all over the world, involving reconsideration of women s rights and status and a radical restructuring of social thought. Bapsi Sidhwa belongs to that group of women creative writers who have started to depict the determined women, for whom traditional role is inadequate, a woman who wishes to affirm their independence and autonomy and is perfectly capable of assuming new roles and responsibilities. In Ice-Candy-Man, Sidhwa wishes a world free from dominance and hierarchy, a world which is based on the principles of justice and equality and is truly human. In this novel sidhwa represents a series of female characters who have survived in a chaotic time of 1947 in India, which can be registered as a period of worst religious riots in the history of humankind. Emotional turmoil, individual weakness, barbarities of communal riots and brutalities inflicted on women has been faithfully projected by Sidhwa. The whole story has been narrated by Lenny who relates the horrors of violence and her personal observation and reactions. She not only observes but analyses man s lascivious and degrading attentions towards women, voraciousness of male sexual desires, women; as they are reduced to the status of sexual objects and relates the peculiar disadvantages, social and evil, to which they are subjected. Ice- Candy- Man, is a saga of female suppression and marginalization. It projects realistically women s plight and exploitation in the patriarchal society. It exposes how men establish their masculine power and hence fulfill their desires by brutally assaulting women. While as on the other hand, it poignantly depicts how women endure the pain and humiliation enacted upon them. Key Words: Women Creative Writers, Traditional Role, Justice and Equality, Communal Riots, Female Suppression and Marginalization and Patriarchal society. A feminist is a person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism. Feminism is a cultural, political and intellectual movement that recognizes the fact of oppression of women and seeks ways to emancipate them. It is the belief and aim that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men and the struggle to achieve this aim. Feminist criticism questions long standing dominant phallogocentric ideologies, patriarchal attitudes and male interpretation in literature. It also challenges traditional and accepted male ideas about the nature of women and Vol. II. Issue. III 1 May 2013

2 about how women feel. This theory aims to comprehend the nature of inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality. Themes explored in feminism include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification, oppression and patriarchy. Simon de Beauvoir in her magnum opus work entitled as The Second Sex, depicts magnificently how the woman is actually on the margin in the patriarchal society: Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female whenever she behaves as a human as a human being, she is said to imitate male. In her novel The Pakistani Bride, Sidhwa depicts poignantly the exploitation of women in patriarchal society as, Women the world over, through the ages, asked to be murdered, raped, exploited, enslaved, to get importunately impregnated, beaten up, bullied and disinherited. It was an immutable Law of nature. (Page, 226). Ice-Candy-Man is a significant testament of a gynocentric view of reality in which the feminine psyche and experiences are presented with a unique freshness and aplomb. It is tangible in this novel that Sidhwa turns the female protagonists into the moral centre, while most of the male characters either remain passive or indulge in violence. The female characters in Ice- Candy-Man pulsate with a will and life of their own. Lenny as a girl child is the most significant female character in this novel. In the literature on Partition in English, she is the only prominent girl child narrator, beside Attia Hosain s Laila in Sunlight on a Broken Column. As a girl child she addresses the issues of children s forced marriage to old and morally degenerate men and the gender bias to which girl children are subjected even by their own families. Bapsi Sidhwa remains a potent voice among the modern feminist writers. She is the only Parsee woman to write on the theme of partition. Being a Parsee, Sidhwa through her novels focuses attention on the rapidly changing scenario in her Parsee polity and culture. Ice-Candy- Man is Sidhwa s important novel which is based on Partition of India. In this novel, she deals with the partition crisis, the Parsee milieu, and the problems of Asian women and theme of marriage. Ice-Candy-Man was published in America under the title Cracking India in This novel highlights feminist concerns about women s issues, particularly their experience of victimization and suppression within patriarchal societies. Its protagonists are mostly women and each of them represents a way of life that either colludes with the premises of patriarchy or else challenges the patriarchal repressiveness in the most unassuming manner. Mother, Mucho and Slave sisters represent the first case. The transformed role of mother as a welfare activist, Ayah s sexuality and the resilience of her spirit and Godmother s positive qualities represent their redemptive potential. The Sub-Continent was turned into a diabolical region in August 1947, when British announced the division into India and Pakistan. This resulted in massive and violent migration of the people across the border. This mass scale of migration entailed crimes of unprecedented violence, murders, rapes, bestiality and so on. This tragic and momentary event stirred the Vol. II. Issue. III 2 May 2013

3 creative imagination of many writers who weaved the fabric of tragic tale highlighting untold and unbearable atrocities of communal violence between the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Khuswant Singh s Train to Pakistan, Attia Housain s Sunlight on a Broken Column, Chaman Nahal s Azadi. Manto s Toba Tek Sngh and Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man are some such examples to give us insight into the public frenzy, communal hatred, exploitation of women, extreme disintegration and large scale of sectarian violence. Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man, describes the monstrosity of the events with such artistry that the tragedy comes alive. What disntinguishes Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man, is the Parsee sensitivity through which the cataclysmic event is depicted. The novelist has realistically illustrated women s plight and exploitation in the patriarchy society. In Partition literature, the paradigm of woman as victim has been used as an important device in the depiction of violence. In Ice-Candy-Man, the extensive featuring of women s shared experiences of victimiziation in the communal riots is complemented by a presentation of their oppression. Women are presented as victims. The novel foregrounds the women s consciousness as they are affected by political battles. It also highlights their individual characteristics and experiences. Sidhwa has recreated a universe where women appear as biological beings. Each woman character represents a way of life. Lenny, her mother, her godmother, Shanta - the Ayah are the major female voices in the novel. In the patriarchal society, masculinity is associated with superiority, whereas; femininity is linked with inferiority, while masculinity implies power, strength, self-assertion and domination, femininity symbolizes weakness, passivity, docility, obedience and self-negation. Since ages it is considered that woman s duty is to look after the house, raise children and give comfort to family. This is an axiomatic fact that women are always being marginalized and considered inferior over centuries. They are not given their rights. According to Sidhwa, a big change is required at social level, which will acknowledge women as human beings having souls, desires and feelings. She affirms that women should utilize their potentials beyond the domestic life to have their own individuality. Sidhwa s Ice-Candy-Man, though ostensibly is heroic centered novel, subtly but effectively subverts the ingrained elements of patriarchy, privileging female will, choice, strength along with feminine qualities of compassion and motherhood. Ice- Candy-Man has strong women characters who want discriminatory action against women stopped, and emphasize on conditioning them for life long and speak against willing subjugation to men; the women of Ice-Candy-Man are not only conscious of their desires, but also eagerly assertive about their independent handling of situations. The central consciousness of the fictional world of Ice-Candy-Man is a young Parsee girl Lenny, who is lame. The lameness of the narrator protagonist is suggestive of handicap, a woman creative writer faces, but when she decides to wield the pen, because writing is an intellectual exercise, is considered a male bastion, outside the routine of women ; submissive domesticity. Her recuperation symbolizes the over coming of the constraint on the intellectual activity of writing by Bapsi Vol. II. Issue. III 3 May 2013

4 Sidhwa. By making Lenny the narrator of the novel, the novelist lends weight and validity to the feminine perspective on the nature of surrounding reality. Ice-Candy-Man is implicitly suggestive of an unbridgeable emotional rift between the sexes. The violent molesting of women and children under the excuse of communal revenge basically highlights the gender divide, which is more absolute and hostile than racial fundamentalism. Women, once they fall prey to men s violence like Lenny s two Ayah s, cannot hope for their restitution to their own families. The following conversation between Lenny and her godmother is pathetic one in the whole novel: What a fallen woman? I ask godmother Hamida (the second Ayah) was kidnapped by the Sikhs, Says godmother seriously When that happens sometimes, The husband or his family won t take her back. Why? It isn t her fault she was kidnapped. Some folk feel that way they can t stand their woman being touched by other men. (Page, 215). This conversation between the two reflects how inscrutable the unwritten laws of patriarchal constitution are. The women themselves more often than not internalize these laws into their perception of self identity. Lenny recognizes the biological exploitation of women as she grows. As a child she cherishes her mother s love and father s protection but the terrible episode of Ice-Candy-Man and Ayah destroys all her thoughts about love. She was puzzled to see Ice-Candy-Man pushing his wife Ayah into the business of prostitution. The incidents of Hindu and Muslim women being raped during the 1947 riots petrify her. She watches men turning into beasts leaving no room for moral and human values. Women including Ayah were becoming prey of men. Lenny was shocked to see the human mind which was built of noble materials getting so easily corrupted. Men were declaring superiority over each other by sexually assaulting women. Women had nothing in their favor. Envy, jealousy, malice, rage for personal power and importance in men were leading to violence and injury. Here I am reminded Shashi Deshpande s famous lines : Rape is for me the grossest violation of trust between two people. Whether it is someone in the family or your husband or any other man who commits a rape, it destroys the trust between men and women. It is also the greatest violence because it is not only the woman s body but is her mind and feeling of her right to have a control on her body which is gone. Sidhwa has also depicted the aftermath of such inhuman and barbaric acts against women after the riots. She has also projected the farcical social behavior which victimizes women alone for any bodily violence and leaves them to wail with their bitter experience which gives them a feeling of pain and sense of loss. Vol. II. Issue. III 4 May 2013

5 An essential difference between a feminist text and a male discourse is that in the latter it is the male who is invested with the qualities of heroism, sacrifice, justice and action while generally the female protagonists remain the recipients of the male bounty and chivalry, in a feminist text, it is the woman who performs and controls and promotes the action by her active involvement and concern and in the process it is she who acquires the attributes of heroism and glory. In Ice-Candy-Man, the narrators relationship with her cousin (he remains cousin throughout the novel, without the specific identity of a name) upholds the principle of equality (or even superiority of woman), as she does not allow him to manipulate her sexually and he remains a drooling figure, adoring her for her vivaciousness. In no way does Lenny s lameness becomes a source of constricting force on her psyche. She remains assertive, at times aggressive and holds her own when it comes to the crunch. Throughout the novel Lenny appears as bold, courageous and strong who is not ready to sccumb to the communal frenzy. She is inquisitive, daring, demanding and lively. Sidhwa has given feminist touch to her character that moves forward despite many hurdles. By observing the life of many women she understands the limitations associated with women lives in patriarchal society. Sidhwa states that women are always marginalized and she always protest against it. The formative influence of Lenny is no other than a female character Ayah. It is Ayah who epitomizes the strength of the femininity for she infuses in Lenny the ideas of freedom and will. Lenny s mother is another significant female character who conforms to the traditional image of a Fidel, faithful and serving wife who seems to be capable only of humoring things out of her husband. In this novel Sidhwa projects through Lenny s mother that women should have a purpose in life besides domesticity which should be developed by them to the best of their abilities. Women need to liberate themselves from the constraints of womanliness which will erase the existing discrepancies regarding their marginalization. In Ice-Candy-Man, it is Lenny s mother and her aunt who play the sterling humanitarian and heroic role of fighting for the lives and property of Hindus. The women characters of this novel also draw our attention to the facts of victimization of women and their compulsions to define their lives according to their pre fixed gender roles. They also expose the patriarchal biases present in the archetypal social perceptions. Lenny recognizes these social patterns and exhibits the vivacity to transcend them. She also records the multifaceted trauma women had faced during the unsettling and devastating days of Partition. In Ice-Candy-Man, Sidhwa expose the patriarchal practices of the society which marginalized their growth and development and also represents women s psychology that has been toned by centuries of conditioning. Hence, we can conclude that Sidhwa has a universal appeal to women folk that they should not resort to patriarch postulates because by doing so they are replicating patriarchy. She offers a vision perpetuate of life in which feminine values are made to rule. She portrays women not only shown victims but also as savior. They are shown performing heroic duties to bring order to this chaotic world. Sidhwa as a novelist, talks of emancipation of women. Hence the novel ends on a positive note. Women strive to come out of their plight and finally move forward from their degrded and tormented state to start their lives Vol. II. Issue. III 5 May 2013

6 afresh. This is sheer technical brilliance possibly only in the art of a writer who is aware of the different nuances of Feminist studies. Works Cited: Ice-Candy-Man: Bapsi Sidhwa, Penguin Books India, 2000 The Pakistani Bride: Penguin Books India, 2000 Bapsi Sidhwa by Randhir Pratap Singh, IVY Publishing House, 2005 The Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa by Rajinder Kumar Dhawan, Prestige Books, 196 Vol. II. Issue. III 6 May 2013