Analysis of An Introduction by Kamala Das

 

                                              An Introduction

                                                         - by Kamala Das

        

                                        【 Kamala Das :- 1934 - 2009 】

           

               Introduction :- 

          An Introduction is an autobiographical poem  by kamala Das. Kamala Das was an Indian author who wrote openly and frankly about female sexual desire and the experience of being an Indian woman. Kamala Das's Malayalam pen name is Madhavikutty and Muslim name is Kamla Surayya. She was a confessional poetess.

    Her famous line :- 

            " I speak in three languages, write in two, Dream in one !! "

         Das was part of a generation of Indian writers whose work centered on personal rather than colonial experiences and her short stories, poetry, memoirs, and essays brought her respect and notoriety in equal measures. Das wrote both in English and under the pen name Madhavikutty , in the Malayalam language of southern India.

                An Introduction is one of her most well-known works. It was published in her first collection, summary in Calcutta in 1965. The collection focuses on love and the pain that follows betrayal.

                   Poem :-            

                           

               -: Summary of An Introduction :- 

                                    " An Introduction " by Kamala Das is an autobiographical and confessional poem that voices out her concern about patriarchy.  " An Introduction " contain her personality as it expresses some incidents of her life, her rejection of patriarchal norms, and her rebelion against the gender role as well. The poem revolves around the topics of gender bias, individuality and imposition of societal norms and standards.

                                      The poet begins the poem with one aspect of Indian politics. There is little space for women in Indian politics. Though she does not know politics , she can repeat the names of politicians. Just as days of the week or names of months are repetative, the names of Indian politicians are repetative, all are male. There are very few names of women on the list.

                                     After politics, she comes to talk about her introduction. She can write in two languages: Malayalam and English. But the critics, her friends, and cousins don't like her for writing in English. They prohibit her because English is a foreign language.

                                     In response to that, she asks everyone to leave her alone and give her the freedom to write in any language she likes. Writing in a colonial language like English does not mean she must follow the standardized form of the language.

                                     Like language, the agents of patriarchy also come forward to impose norms of the society. They make her realize that she is grown up, and this implies that she is ready for marriage. When she feels the need for love, her family and relatives forcefully fix her marriage with a youth of sixteen.

                             In her married life, she undergoes pain and suffering. Consequently, she starts to feel repulsive toward her womanliness and rejects her womanliness. Seeing the change in her, the agents of patriarchy again remind her of the rules that she needs to follow. Indifferent to them, she goes on to search for love. She falls in with a man. He is every man who wants a woman, and she is every woman who seeks love.

                                 She asks everyone their identity, and the answer is 'I'. Pursuing the 'I', she identifies with every woman who is having different experiences in life.  

             -:  Critical appreciation of An  Introduction :-

                   An  Introduction is obviously an autobiographical poem written by Kamala Das Which first appeared in her Summer in Calcutta (1965). The poem is a brilliant example of her confessionalism wherein she unfolds her entire self with extreme frankness and candour. In this poem,the poet expresses her experiences which were strictly private and personal.

                    The poem is a revolt against conventionalism and restraints put against Indian women. In this poem, the question of whether or not Indians should write in English is put to rest. The poem is also remarkable for its daring innovativeness.

                    The poet says she is not interested in politics but claims that since the time of Nehru, she can name all the people who have been in office. She implicitly states the fact that politics in the world is a game of the few selected elite who ironically govern a democracy by claiming that she can repeat them as fluently as days of the week or names of the month. The fact that she remembers them so clearly indicates that the same people have been in power over and over again.

                          Next, she identifies herself as an Indian, born in Malabar and very brown in colour. She speaks in three languages, writes in two and dreams in one, sharing the notion that dreams have a common language of their own. Kamala Das reiterates that the medium of writing is not as important as the amount of comfort one needs. Since it is not her mother tongue, people have asked her not to write in English. In comparison, any time she had a meeting with a critic, colleagues, or visiting cousins, the fact that English was a colonial language predominant as a means of communication during British times attracted still more scrutiny. She stresses that all the imperfections and queerness is her own, the vocabulary she speaks becomes her own.

                          It’s half-English, half-Hindi, which sounds pretty funny, but the point is that it’s fair. All that makes it more human is its imperfections, making it similar to what we term normal. As it voices its joys, sorrows and dreams, it is the tongue of her expression and sentiment. Cawing is as critical to her as it is to the crows and the lions roaring. It is not, though incomplete, a deaf, blind expression like that of storm trees or rain clouds. Nor does it echo the “funeral pyre’s incoherent mutterings.” Rather, it has its own intrinsic natural coherence.

                               She continues to share her own storey. She was a child and she was later told by strangers that she had grown up and her body had begun to exhibit signs of puberty. She didn’t seem to understand this interpretation, though she was still a child at her heart. When she asked her soulmate for love, not knowing what else to ask, the sixteen-year-old took her to his apartment. The word is a potent critique of child marriage that drives children into such a predicament when they are still very childish at heart. She felt beaten even though he didn’t beat her, and her body seemed crushed by her own weight. This is a rather emphatic expression of how a sixteen-year-old ‘s body is unprepared for the attack under which it is exposed. Ashamed of her femininity, she shrank pitifully.

                              By being tomboyish, she attempts to overcome such embarrassment. And then, as she chooses to cover her femininity in male clothes, the guardians impose traditional feminine attire, with reminders to conform into a woman’s socially defined features, to become a woman and a mother, and to be limited to the domestic routine. In order not to make herself a psychic or a maniac, she is threatened to live inside the four walls of her women’s room. They also ask her to catch her tears when rejected in love. As they seem to categorise any person based on merely whimsical points, she calls them categorizers.

                                Towards the end of the poem, the poet mentions his experiences with a man. She doesn’t take names, but the symbolism of her relationship is what she’s trying to express. He’s every other man who wants a woman, like the embodiment of the hungry rush of the river, while she’s every other woman, the embodiment of patience like the tireless waiting of the ocean. When he asks a man who he is, he responds saying he is I. The poet, herein through symbolism, introduces to the readers the inherent male ego of a patriarchal society. He is rigid in his mind as a “sword in his sheath,” and his opinions are not open to debate. It is this “I,” i.e. the male ego, that justifies lying drunk at midnight in the night in a hotel in a foreign area, that justifies complacent laughter, that makes a woman’s love and then feels embarrassed that she is so easily carried away, and yet dies with a rattling in her throat, as anyone else. Death reveals the futility of the male ego, revealing that “he” is not greater.

                                    The poet then ends by saying that this “I” should not be different from “her,” and so I am both the sinner and the saint, both the betrayer and the betrayed, as well as the man and the woman. There are no pleasures of “I” that she doesn’t get to feel, not any pains that she hasn’t been through with through. Thus “She” is “I” too.

                 -: Structure and Form :- 

                                            " An Introduction " is a 59 line poem that consists of two stanzas. The first 37 lines comprise the first stanza and the remaining 22 lines form the second. The poem does not follow any particular metrical pattern. Das also refrains from  using a set rhyming pattern. The length and number of syllables in the lines also very widely, making it a poem in free verse. Employing such a structure makes it simpler for the post to experiment with different frameworks ad more erratic rhymes. Other than that, the poem contains a number of half-rhymes and internal rhymes.

           -:  Themes of the poem :- 

                                   Kamala Das's An Introduction uese Indian themes and patterns and speak intimately of sexuality and domestic oppression. Das explores powerful themses of feminism/ equal rights, freedom and marriage in 'An Introduction'. This poem is a very clear feminist statement that advocates for free choice for all women. This is in regards to every aspect of life, but the post puts a special emphasis on marriage. She compares and contrasts the reader how her life, the rules she's forced to obey, infringe on her freedom.

                             Her poetry is characterized by the presence of stark images that challenge many conventions generally considered to be part of 'Indian Life'. In this poem An Introduction kamala Das explores the desire of self-expression :- 

       1. The obvious desire to write poetry & fiction.

       2. The obvious desire for sexual expression.

Here she creating a new space for women and the poem is a strong remark on patriarchal society prevalent today and brings to light the miseries, bondage, pain suffered by the fairer sex in such times. This poem also represents body politics, linguistic politics, and identity crisis, body and soul debate.

                          With the change in outlook and setting forth of women's liberation, many of the modern women poets have taken recourse to frank expressions of which some striking examples are to be found in the poetry of Kamala Das. Her frankness gives stregth to her poetry. Taking her cue from the modernist movement in poetry, she believes in the sincere treatment of the material. In trying to establish intimate tone. She gives unabashed expression to her personal themes.

        -: An Introduction is personal or universal ? 

                                A universal poem is one that has a theme that is common to al humanity, such as love, nature, or loss. It is usually written about beliefs, that all people have. A personal poem is one that is about the personal life of the poet.

                             An Introduction is both personal and universal poem. The poem is autobiographical and bears universal elements. It examines the circumstances that the poet goes through. The poet compares her situation to a particular situation of someone else and gives a very personal view on things. It is a very personal poem but is not about the poet herself.

                           The poetess opens the loneliness of pot just Indian women but women of many nation. She presents crankiness, distority, honesty and brutal frankness and a tradition and culture of that time and the earnest rebellion of a growing girl who was trapped in a time zone different from her mental time. The poetess has grown to see her rebellion in many a women. The poetess, who is an individual woman, tries to voice a universal womanhood and tries to share her experience, good or bad with all other women. Love and sexuality are a strong component in her search for female identity and the identity consists of polarities.

                         She promotes independence for women and a respect for their individual lives. She spends parts of the poem talking about herself but does so in a way that advocates for equal rights between the sexes.

                         In poem she deliberately uses the pronoun "he " because it is the privilege of the man to own and assert an identity. Every human being is a possibility, like a sword in a sheath. She goes on to elaborate on how she is not just one woman but every woman who feels persecuted and opressed:-

                       It is I who drink lonely

                       Drink at twelve, midnight,in hotels of strange towns,

                       It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

                       And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying

                       With a rattle in my throat.

 

               These images all speak of women breaking under the pressure of expectations. The woman drinking alone is a woman who is rejected by society. The woman who makes love and feels ashamed is a victim of being judged every tie she expresses and acts upon desire. Finally, the image of the girl, dying with a rattle in her throat, is the horrific image of female infanticide which is a curse of the Indian subcontinent. From her birth to death, a woman faces every persecution which Kamala Das thinks of as her own. In doing this she establishes a link with every woman, in a sort of universal sisterhood. This is seen as a significant marker of modern and post modern feminist writing. 

                          On one hand, the poem is written in a confessional mode and autobiographical in nature. On the other hand, it becomes a universal voice of the creative female writer. Therefore, this poem is both personal and universal in tone. 

        -:  Conclusion :- 

                                      Kamala Das seen as one of the most prominent feminist voices to emergence in postcolonial India. "An Introduction" was written when she was in her thirties struggling to find her voce long subdued in marriage. It is autobiographical poem and it is also a poem of resistance and  protest. In this she describes her own experiences and condition of women. Kamala Das compares her situation to a particular situation of someone else and gives very personal views on things. In An Introduction she explores themes like feminism, equal rights, freedom and marriage. This poem has a very clear feminist statement that advocates for free choice for all women.    

Thank you...

               -:  Work Cited  :-

   

 -   https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamala-Das

 -   https://poemanalysis.com/kamala-das/an-introduction/    

 -   https://englishnotes.com/is-an-introduction-by-kamala-das-a-personal-or-a-universal-poem-justify-your-opinion/#:~:text=An%20Introduction%20is%20both%20personal,very%20personal%20view%20on%20things.  

 -  https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/Kamala-Das-An-Introduction-A-Detailed-Analysis

  - https://smartenglishnotes.com/2020/10/23/an-introduction-by-kamala-das-summary-critical-appreciation-and-model-question-answers/