As we examine the course of our history, we find that women played a very significant role in storytelling. The tales and talks by these women have been handed down to many generations and these have gradually attained the status of folk literature and oral tradition. But, as time went on, this oral tradition is replaced by the written forms. And as the need for documenting the literature came, women have lost their so-called status as storytellers. The phallocentric society demands women to be confined in a domestic space. The women’s creativity was ignored and she was considered as a mere object of desire and a tool for procreation.
This paper endeavours to focus on the two short stories, ‘Inside Every Woman Writer’ and ‘The Vein of Memory’, written by two women writers, Sarah Joseph and K.R. Meera respectively. Both the stories depict the psychological turmoil of female characters, who desire to become creative writers, but their wings of aspirations are clipped by the patriarchal norms and mores.
Sarah Joseph’s ‘Inside Every Woman Writer’
Sarah Joseph’s short story ‘Inside Every Woman Writer’ can be considered as a golden feather in her collection. The story was originally written in Malayalam as “OoroEzhuttukaariyuteUllilum,” and has been translated into English by Dr. V.C. Harris. This is a brilliant unfolding of a woman’s resistance where her creativity is repressed in the hands of the male-dominated society. The title of the story carries the word ‘woman’ which stands as a collective noun to the universal female psyche.
K.R. Meera’s ‘The Vein of Memory’
‘The Vein of Memory’ (‘OrmayudeNjarampu’) is a short story written by K.R. Meera, a famous Malayalam women writer, has been inspired by the life of an old woman writer, the wife of a political leader whom the author knew from her childhood. The central character in the story, the old woman is a representative of suppressed female writers, whose wings of creativity are clipped by the male dominated society.
Between Silence and Expression
Every human being has an instinctual craving for the freedom and choice of his/her own. But the society over years treated woman as the ‘Other’ in relation to man and hence she was demarcated to a certain space. The protagonist of the short story ‘Inside Every Woman Writer’ is of this kind. She is a married woman and her domestic responsibilities demanded her to remain confined to the patriarchal rules and practices. Her husband Purushothaman is a typical representative of the male-dominated hegemonic system and is very much reluctant towards considering his wife as an independent intellectual being.
Throughout the story, the writer has interwoven a mosaic of metaphors. Aunt Mable’s house serves as a metaphor throughout the story as a place (feminized landscape) where every woman celebrates her freedom of imagination and creativity.
Gender and Creativity
Gender is culture bound rather than nature bound. According to Ross C. Murfin gender “is a construct, an effect of language, a culture, and its institutions” (Guerin 237). Both the stories present the domestic circumstances where multifarious repressions strangle the creativity of women. Both the characters are imprisoned in the tumultuous silence. One character breaks that silence and comes out with her identity, whereas the other character chooses to pursue the silence.
Conclusion
From all the ages, the patriarchy has been callously suppressing female voice, and tying her in the so-called family system to avoid the chances for alternative claims of supremacy. Most of the times, these gender barriers pull back woman to come up with her ideas, and her capabilities and imaginations are ignored and snubbed by the gender-blinded society. It is with the emergence of the new found ‘self’ by women, which forms a challenging force that shakes the foundations of the patriarchal frameworks.
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