CHAPTER IV

The Inner Voice: A woman speaks out

“One is not bom, but rather becomes a woman”

(The Second Sex: 295)

Women’s position in society has been conditioned by social constructs, impositions

and restrictions are the givens under which women have been living since early times.

Patriarchal mindsets have always played a dominant role in outlining, “what is

feminine” (Freedman :14), and have defined the behavioral patterns o f women in

family as well in society1. Women have been constrained in their thought, expression

and activities as society has appropriated gender roles as well as the norms, and

conditions of their social life. A well-observed fact is that human civilization down the

ages have differentiated sex from gender, and have ordained a code o f conduct for

women, in conformity with socio-culturai patterns. One may be bom a woman, but it

is society that is responsible for defining role models for women as wife, mother and

as an individual. The voices o f women have been stifled and they have remained

unheard in social history, as patriarchal hierarchy has compelled them to remain a

shadow o f their inner selves.

The oppression o f woman is both a material reality, originating in material

conditions, and a psychological phenomenon, a function o f the way women and

men perceive one another and themselves. But it is generally true that gender is

constructed in patriarchy to save the interest o f male supremacy ((Moi: 3)

History bears evidence to the fact that women could not possess property in their

own names, engage in business, or gain the disposal o f their children or even of their
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own persons; and this was sanctioned by law and religion. Women were regarded

inferior to men both physically and intellectually. Thus, feminist theorist while re­

examining the social conditioning o f women’s lives, and discrimination on the ground

of sex, argued that the biological as well as the social should not be treated as identical

entities. They pointed out that both need proper attention and differentiation. In this

context, Ann Oakley comments:

Such a strategy only works because gender was invented to help explain

Women’s position: men neither wonder about their nor need to explain it”

(Oakley: 1997:30).

Referring to this pre-conceived notion of gender and subjection, Mary M Talbot,

opines that sex is “ .. .a matter o f genes, gonads, and hormones’ and it is ‘essentially

binary as one is ‘either male or female’, while gender is ‘socially constructed ...

Further, she views that it is the social culture, history and milieu, which causes “sex -

exclusive and sex-preferential differentiations” (Talbot: 7).

A look at the movement for the cause of women reveals that the struggle against

victimization and social oppressions had been a longstanding one, o f nearly two

centuries. However, it took an organized form from the last decade of the eighteenth

century, and had its roots in humanism and the Industrial Revolution. Forerunners

, such as Anne Hutchinson however, had voiced her concern during the English and

French Revolutions, but only with the Seneca Falls did a corporate body o f feminist

thinkers emerge in the West. French feminism however dates back to Christine de

Pisan (1364-1430), who was considered to have held modem feminist vievw. In this

context, Joan Kelly observed:

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If Petrarch can he called the first modem man, then Christine de Pisan, the poet

and author who introduced her countrymen Petrarch and Boccaccio, to Parisian

culture in the early 1400, is surely the first modem woman (Kelly: 69).

The feminist thinkers o f the 19th and early 20th centuries took up the burning

issues o f the day such as the attainment of basic political rights and liberty for women,

the right for married women to own property ,enter into contracts, the right to have

women on juries, and the crucial right to vote. The result was that England won the

voting right for women in 1918 and America in 1920. Mary Astell and others had

earlier pleaded for a just social order for women, and the first feminist document was

Mary Wollstonecrafit’s Vindication o f the Rights o f Women (1792).This was followed

by Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845), John Stuart Mill’s The

Subjection o f Women (1869), Fredrich Engel’s The Origin o f the Family (1884) and

Oliver Scheiner ‘s Women and Labour (1911).

A landmark in feminist criticism was achieved by Virginia Woolf .In her classic

work Room o f One’s Own (1929), Woolf argued for the value o f independence and

privacy for any creative writer. She questioned the negligence, marginalization as well

as the limitation of women’s space in literary creations. Her essay Professions for

Women was a protest against the patriarchal social set-up, which had pressurized

women writers to the ideology o f the angel-in-tbe house. It had also made women

suffer economically and socio-culturally, thereby preventing them from articulating

their innermost feelings. Woolf also pointed out that Dorothy Richardson’s stream of

consciousness novel Pilgrimage was the first attempt to probe into the psyche of

women.
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The post-war period saw the publication o f Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second

Sex (1949), which evolved transformational changes in feminist thinking and

movement An unparalleled work, it probed into the socio-economic, cultural, as well

as the political lives of women vis-a -vis the patriarchal social constructs. Beauvoir

closely observed that:

One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is

desirable that they should, what place they occupy in this world, what their place

should be(Beauvoir: “Introduction” :13),

This observation undoubtedly highlighted the situation o f women in male

dominated society; the restrictions imposed upon them by male prejudices and biased

social attitudes. The work continues to be a milestone in feminist thought as it draws

attention to the difference o f attitudes towards the female gender. Based on the

existentialist philosophy o f Sartre, The Second Sex stands five decades after its

appearance, as the first landmark in the modem feminist movement that transformed

perceptions of the social relationship between the two sexes.

Various other feminist theorists have also outlined the concepts o f the movement

and forwarded their viewpoints, to provide a substantial definition of the term

feminism. They have also tried to establish the role and position o f women, their rights

and status in society.

To Lisa Tuttle the term ‘feminism’, originating from the Latin word “femina”

meant, “having the qualities o f women” (Tuttle 1986:107). Toril Moi viewed that,

.. the word ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism’ are political labels indicating support for the

aims of the new movement which emerged in the late 1960s” (M oil, 1986:204).But

Simone de Beauvoir was most comprehensive, when she writes:

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H ie te rm s m a s c u lin e a n d fe m in in e a re u s e d s y m m e tric a lly o n ly a s a m a tte r o f

fo rm . In a c tu a lity , th e re la tio n o f th e tw o s e x e s is n o t q u ite lik e th a t o f tw o

e le c tric a l p o le s , fo r m a n re p re s e n ts b o th th e p o s itiv e a n th e n e u tra l, a s is

in d ic a te d b y th e c o m m o n u s e o f m a n to d e s ig n a te h u m a n b e in g s in g e n e ra l;

w h e re a s w o m a n re p re s e n ts o n ly th e n e g a tiv e , d e fin e d b y lim itin g c rite ria ,

w ith o u t re c ip ro c ity ... A m a n is in th e rig h t in b e in g a m a n ; it is th e w o m a n w h o

is in th e w ro n g (B e a u v o ir: 1 5 ).

B e a u v o ir’s o b s e rv a tio n s th u s b e c a m e in d is p e n s a b le in p a v in g th e w a y to w a rd s

fe m in is t c o n s c io u s n e s s .

F e m in is t m o v e m e n t e n c a p s u la te d a ll th e d iv e rg e n t a p p ro a c h e s , a n d s o u g h t to

a m e n d in ju s tic e s to w a rd s w o m a n in fa m ily a n d s o c ie ty . Its p h ilo s o p h y w a s to p ro b e

in to th e in h e re n t c a u s e o f w o m e n ’s s u ffe rin g s , a n d p ro v id e s u g g e s tio n s fo r re fo rm .

T h e fe m in is t m o v e m e n t, fo re g ro u n d e d th e in ju s tic e s to w a rd s w o m e n o n g ro u n d s o f

s e x , a n d c a lle d fo r e q u a lity o f tre a tm e n t a n d s ta tu s — le g a l, s o c ia l a n d e c o n o m ic a l. It

a ls o s o u g h t to a s s e rt th e p o s itio n o f w o m e n in s o c ie ty , s o th a t th e y m a y b e tre a te d a t

p a r w ith th e ir m a le c o u n te rp a rts , a n d n o t b e d is c rim in a te d o n g ro u n d s o f th e ir g e n d e r.

T h e m o v e m e n t d id n o t s u b s c rib e d iffe re n tia tio n b e tw e e n m e n a n d w o m e n , o r o n ly

fu rth e r w o m e n ’s c a u s e s b u t ra th e r s o u g h t to c re a te a n e n v iro n m e n t o f a w a re n e s s

a g a in s t o p p re s s io n s , w ith a c a ll fo r a h u m a n is tic a p p ro a c h to w o m e n ’s p r o b le m s . T h u s ,

w e m a y s a y th a t fe m in is m c a n n o t b e c a lle d a u n ita ry c o n c e p t, b u t a " ... d iv e rs e a n d

m u ltifa c e te d g ro u p in g o f id e a s , a n d ... .a c tio n s ” ( F r e e d m a n : 1 ).

T h e la te 1 9 6 0 s a ls o s a w th e fe m in is t m o v e m e n t re a c h its z e n ith , w ith its s w e e p in g

a c ro s s th e w o rld , a n d fe m in is ts v o ic in g th e ir c ry a g a in s t s o c ia l in ju s tic e s a n d

o p p re s s io n o f w o m e n in e v e ry o c c u p a tio n . It w a s n o lo n g e r c o n fin e d to d e m o n s tra tiv e

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protests on the streets but soon entered the academic circles and became an important

subject of literary debate and discussion. Betty Friedan, in The Feminine Mystique

(1963), gave a clarion call to all women when she questioned the impositions by the

social patriarchal system, limiting women to the confines of domesticity and childcare.

She asserted;

For women, as for man, the need for self-Mfillment-autonomy, self-realization,

independence, individuality, self-actualization-is as important as the sexual need

(Friedan: 282).

Others, who recorded similar thoughts, were Mary Ellman (Thinking about

Women 1968), Kate Millet (Sexual Politics 1969), Shulamith Firestone (The Dialectic

o f Sex 1972), and Toril Moi (Sexual / Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory

1985). Elaine Showalter’s The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature

and Theory (1985), Sara Mills, and others, Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading

(1989), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwomen in the Attic: The Woman

Writer and the Nineteenth Century Imagination (1979).

A study of these theories show that, all these critics and writers were very much

conscious of the descending position of women in every walk o f life, as well as in

literary criticism. Women were being prejudiced because of their gender, and there

was biasness in evaluating their writings. Highlighting this aspect of male devaluation,

Mary Ellman in Thinking about Women (1968) pointed out that the social constructs

had derogated the position o f women. She also observed that women’s writings were

not judged objectively, but were viewed from the angle of their gender:
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B o o k s b y w o m e n a re tre a te d a s th o u g h th e y th e m s e lv e s w e re w o m e n , a n d

c ritic is m e m b a rk s , a t its h a p p ie s t, u p o n a n in te lle c tu a l m e a s u rin g o f b u s ts a n d

h ip s (E llm a n : 2 9 ).

In th is c o n te x t, A b ra m s p o in ts o u t th a t w o m a n w e re " ... s te re o ty p e s in lite ra tu re

w ritte n b y m e n ...” (A b ra m s : 2 3 4 ). S im ila r s e n tim e n ts w e re a ls o e x p re s s e d b y K a te

M ille t.2 In S e x u a l P o litic s (1 9 7 0 ), s h e to o k a m o re p o le m ic a l s ta n d a g a in s t m a le

d o m in a n c e . B y u s in g th e te rm p o litic s , s h e re fe rre d “ to th e m e c h a n is m s th a t e x p re s s

a n d e n fo rc e th e re la tio n s o f p o w e r in s o c ie ty ” ( A b ra m s :2 3 4 ). S h e a ls o o b s e rv e d th a t

p o litic s w a s th e b a s e fo r th e re la tio n s h ip b e tw e e n th e s e x e s . T h e m y th o f th e F a ll,

c e n tra l m y th o f th e J u d e o -C h ris tia n b e lie f c e n te re d o n th e fa c t th a t w o m a n w a s th e

c a u se o f h u m a n s u ffe rin g s a n d s in . E v e h a d b e e n c re a te d b y G o d o u t o f A d a m ’s rib s ,

a n d w a s G o d ’s s e c o n d m is ta k e . T h is c o n c e p t h a d a n im p a c t u p o n W e s te rn tra d itio n a l

th o u g h t, c o m p e llin g m e n to : " ... m a n ip u la te p o w e r so a s to e s ta b lis h a n d p e rp e tu a te

th e d o m in a n c e o f m e n a n d s u b o rd in a tio n o f w o m e n ” (A b ra m s :2 3 4 ).

T o ril M o i to o s h a re d th e s e th o u g h ts a n d v ie w e d th a t “ ...t h e fe m in is t c ritic c a n b e

s e e n a s th e p ro d u c t o f a s tru g g le m a in ly c o n c e rn e d w ith s o c ia l a n d p o litic a l c h a n g e ;

h e r s p e c ific r o le w ith in it b e c o m e s a n a tte m p t to e x te n d s u c h g e n e ra l p o litic a l a c tio n to

c u ltu ra l d o m a in ” ( M o i,1 9 8 5 : 2 3 ).

It is to b e n o te d h e re th a t s o c ia l h is to ry re v e a ls th a t w o m e n h a v e b e e n n e g le c te d ,

a n d e v e n o b lite ra te d fro m lite ra ry c ritic is m . In h e r e s s a y T o w a r d s a F e m in is t P o e tic s

(1 9 7 9 ), E la in e S h o w a lte r, p ro b e d in to lite ra ry h is to ry a n d u n e a rth e d th e s ta rtlin g fa c t

th a t w o m e n w rite rs h a v e b e e n w ip e d a w a y fro m th e lite ra ry tra d itio n . S h e a ls o

o b s e rv e d th a t th e ir w o rk s w e re c o n s id e re d in s ig n ific a n t, u n fit to c o m p ly w ith th e

lite ra ry c rite rio n . S h e q u e s tio n e d :

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How were women represented in men’s literary texts? What was the relationship

between the textual harassment of women and the oppression of women in

society? Why were women absent from literary history? If literature, Roland

Barthes had said, ‘what gets taught’, was women’s writing, rarely taught, not

‘literature’? Was there a tradition of women’s writing, or an autonomous female

aesthetics? And if one could talk about women’s writing, was ‘men’s writing’

also marked by gender? (Showalter, 1990:179).

As an answer to these questions, the critic herself pointed out that female

literary tradition does exist, and the task o f the literary critics is to unearth and retrieve

the lost or repressed women’s writings. Here, she coined the term

“gynocriticism”3(Showalter 1990:190) for the analysis and criticism of women’s

writings. According to her feminist criticism is o f two major types: the first ‘feminist

critique’ is concerned with woman as reader. The second ‘gynocritic’, concerned with

woman as writer, a producer of textual meaning. In her essay Towards a Feminist

Poetics (1979), she expresses the view that:

The first type is concerned with ... woman as the consumer of male -produced

literature, and with the way in which the hypothesis o f a female reader changes

our apprehension o f a given text, awakening us to the significance of its textual

codes ... Its subjects include images and stereotypes of women in literature, the

omissions of and misconceptions about women in criticism, and the fissures in

male constructed literary history (Showalter, 1979:128).

She also said that when feminist criticism focuses on the woman as writer it

concerns itself:
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Woman as the producer o f textual meaning, with history, genres and structures

of literatures by women. Its subjects include the psychodynamics of female

creativity; linguistics and the problem of female languages; the trajectory of the

individual or collective literary career; literary history; and of course, studies of

particular writers and works (Showalter, 1979:128).

Moreover, Showalter questioned whether a distinct language for writing of

women’s sensibilities, feelings emotions etc existed and that literary creations should

be a reflection of those sensibilities. In A Literature o f Their Own: Bristish Women

Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (1977), she categorically described the stages in the

history of women’s literature. First comes an androgynist poetics. Next a feminist

critique and female aesthetic, accompanied by gynocritics, and then the gynesic

poststructuralist feminist criticism and gender theory. Summing up Showalter’s

study, Barry points out:

... feminine phase (1840-80) in which women writers imitated dominant male

artistic norms and aesthetic standards; then a feminist phase(1880-1920), in

which radical and often separatist positions are maintained, and finally a female

phase(1920 onwards) which looked particularly at female writing and female

experience (Barry: 123).

Showalter’s theory opened-up new avenues o f feminist literary criticism. It

questioned sexual difference and the exclusion o f women from literary tradition. The

late seventies were also marked by the call of other theorists for an enlarged space for

women’s creative excellence. Eminent among them was Ellen M oers,whose Literary

Women (1976) was the result of a long process of reflection on women and literature,

a process that started in 1963, the year in which Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
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Mystique was published. Literary Women was widely acclaimed, as it was the first

attempt to provide an outline o f the literary history o f women. The w o rk : , proved to

be a catalyst, which authoritatively established the scope, depth, variety o f literature

written by women.

The age also saw another exemplar of feminist literary criticism, Sandra Gilbert

and Susan Gubar.In The Madwomen in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the

Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (1979), these writers revealed: obsessive

imagery of confinement ...the ways in which female artists feel trapped and sickened

both by suffocating alternatives and the culture that had created them” (Gilbert and

Gubar, 1979:64).

Both these critics * showed that the female critics, because of their personal

experience o f the workings o f patriarchy, are arguably better equipped to bring to light

and analyze such typically female preoccupations. Gilbert and Gubar’s research

revealed that, artistic creativity was considered a male prerogative and as such, women

writers were unable to focus on their true inner selves. They pointed out:

Since both patriarchy and its texts subordinate and imprison women, before

women can even attempt that pen which is so rigorously kept from them they

must escape just those male texts which , defining as ‘Cyphers’, deny them the

autonomy to formulate alternatives to the authority that has imprisoned them and

kept them from attempting the pen.( Gilbet &Gubar :13).

Since creativity was confined to males, it is obvious that women were,

represented only from the male angle of vision. Women were glorified in texts written

by men, while in practical life they were relegated to the backyard. Virginia Woolf as

has highlighted this:

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Imaginatively she is the highest importance; practically she is

completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover, she is all but absent

from history ... (Room o f Ones O w n: 44-45).

While emphasizing the situation of women as pointed out by Gilbet and Gubar,

Moi argued that:

... in the nineteenth century the ‘eternal feminine ’ was assumed to be a vision of

angelic beauty and sweetness: from Dante’s Beatrice and Goethe’s Gretchen and

Makarie to Coventry Patmore’s ‘A ngel in the House the ideal women is seen as

passive, docile and above all selfless creature (M oi: 1985:58).

The feminist movement now opened up vistas o f thought and a search for new

paradigms of creativity. The rubric o f the feminist literary criticism was that, sexual

difference has always existed in literary representation’ and that the female voice has

been excluded from literary creativity, theory and criticism. Therefore, the prime need

of the hour is to re-look into the writings of women, with fresh insight and evaluation.

Feminist thinkers now appealed for the rehabilitation o f the lost female literary

tradition and the formation o f a literary canon for the proper assessment o f women’s

creativity. To quote Jameela Begum in this context:

Feminist writers and critics have 'AT a f e J an agenda that centers on the

mapping o f unexplored realms o f female experience, which hitherto remained

outside the documented scenario o f human experience. Placing herself at the

centre and redrawing the circle of existence around her, shifting the angles o f

vision at the periphery, the writer focuses on the unmapped wilderness of the

female psyche (Begum : 261).

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Thus, recognition of the creative talents of women, ignored in literary history,

began to take roots. Works by women were read with renewed interest and a literary

canon was established to evaluate women’s art. “Women critics now began to voice

aloud what it means to ‘think’ and ‘read as a woman” (Begum: 263). Lorraine Weir

too argued that women’s writing is an expression of their subjective selves and that all

women texts are a reflection of a “ ...unwritten text namely the world of women,

which binds them into an interpretative community” (Weir: 66). Living on the

periphery, women have always wanted a space to express themselves, and to share

with the readers their experiences and sensibilities. This has become possible through

their creations. Louise Forsyth points out those texts circulated and remained open,

like a friend’s voice, creating new common spaces for women. Suzanne Lamy4.

Brossard5in their criticisms, expressed similar thought. Feminist literary criticism

therefore condemned the socio-cultural conventions that had been instrumental in

repressing women’s sensibilities.

Along with the Anglo-American feminist criticism, French feminists also made

profound contribution to the feminist movement :“French feminists adopted and

adapted a great deal of (mainly) post-structural and psychoanalytic criticism as the

basis of much of their work” (Barry: 124).It was more radical in thought and

expression, and postulated certain ideas which formed a strong base for future

thinking. More theoretical in nature, it concentrated on the insights of the post­

structuralists, especially on Lacan, Foucault and Derrida. Amongst these French

critics, mention may be made of Julia Kristeva, He'le'ne Cixous and Luce Ir'u ^ y .

According to Heje'ne Cixous the existence of an e' criture feminine, in women's

language cannot be overruled. By this expression, she means that women's

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expressions differ from men’s discourse. In her essay “The Laugh of the Medusa”,

He;le ne Cixous contended that because women’s experience is mediated by a variety

of social discourses, women must write through their bodies, and that they must invent

a language that will break down the differences not only in society but also in the

language for literary construction.

The body thus becomes equivalent to a text which encoded women’s sensibilities

and emotions and becomes a manifestation o f their inner voice. Cixous also posited

that this feminine language has its source in the mother. Summarizing Cixous’s stance,

Abrams says:

... in that stage o f the mother-child relations before the child acquires the male -

centered verbal language. Thereafter ... this prelinguistic potentiality in the

unconscious manifests itself in those written texts that, abolishing all repression

... and “closure” opens out into a joyous free play o f meaning (Abrams:338).

Further expressions o f the female language or the Venture feminine are found in

the writings o f Julia Kristeva. In her essay “The System and the Speaking Subject”,

she used the terms the symbolic and the semiotic to designate two different aspects of

language. According to her, the symbolic aspect is associated with authority, order,

fathers, repression and control, while the semiotic aspect o f discourse is characterized

not by logic and order, but by displacement slippage, condensation, which suggests,

again a much looser, more randomized way o f making connections, one which

increases the available range of possibilities. The semiotic aspect o f the language

therefore opens up a variety of possibilities for the expression of women’s

sensibilities.
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Another indispensable aspect o f the feminist criticism, which requires attention,

is its relationship with psychoanalysis. It had its beginning with Kate Millet’s Sexual

Politics in 1969. The feminists’ activists condemned Freud, as he was a prime source

of patriarchal attitudes.6 Freud was later on defended by Juliet Millet and others.7 In

his study into the female psyche, Freud viewed that the lack of external genitals is the

principal cause of woman’s feminine character .This causes a sense of inferiority in

women, while for the male, it ignites a desire to master and subdue as well as to exert

power. Moi puts it:

Thus the female castration complex becomes still more of the same. Woman is

not only the Other, as Simone de Beauvoir discovered, but is quite specifically

m an’s Other: his negative or mirror- image (Moi, 1985:133).

This theory opened up controversial discussion and was the target o f many

debates. Freud’s theory was later worked upon and modified by Jacques Lacan who

based his theory on linguistic, structuralist and semiotic approach. According to

Lacan, the “... phallus as the signifier...signifies patriarchal character.”8As the child

enters from the Imaginary world to the Symbolic, the language becomes one o f

acceptance of the social environment and cultural systems. It begins to be a symbol of

the patriarchal setup and therefore signifies the sexual power of men. In patriarchal

social structures, femininity or the voice of women therefore becomes repressed

leading to the production of male centered texts.

From the 1980s, feminist movement underwent diverse change. It became more:

“...eclectic in nature... drawing upon other critical approaches—Marxism,

structuralism, linguistics and so on ...” (Barry: 122).

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Feminist literary criticism9, a product of the feminist movement, has initiated

introspection into the consciousness o f the role o f women and their stance in literary

theory. It has also taken a polemical stand in its contention o f providing a proper space

for women’s writings and use o f language in literary art. A vital question, now

attended to, was the exposition o f the biasness o f socio-cultural mindset. This had

perpetuated inequality o f treatment amongst the sexes, down the centuries.

Thus we may say that the feminist movement questioned the long-standing,

phallocentric ideologies and patriarchal attitudes. It attacked male notions o f value in

literature, and criticized male authors for their biased attitudes, in their representation

o f women in literature. It further challenged traditional and accepted male notions

about women’s sensibilities and emotions, which presented only the male view points.

The movement called for a re-look into the literary works by women so that then-

literary quality may be rightly assessed.

From the sixties onwards, the feminist movement has come a long way, and

today the term connotes a wide variety o f approaches. It has not only a single

meaning, rattier multiple interpretations with wide paradigms. Under the umbrella

term ‘feminism’ it includes, Radical feminism, Socialist feminism. Liberal feminism,

Marxist feminism, Black feminism, Lesbian feminism etc. Feminism now denotes

women’s inner freedom and awakening, and seeks to establish the interdependence

between the sexes. It also heralds a new phase of feminist thought and invites attention

with fresh insight and wider understanding to women’s problems. It incorporates

mutual respect. Moreover, the ideology emphasizes «Jbn presenting real life

situations in the literature by women. In this context, we may agree with Ann Rosalind

Jones when she says;

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Women writings will be more accessible to writers and readers alike if we

recognize it as a conscious response to socio literary realities, rather than accept

it as an overflow of one woman’s unmediated communication with her body

(Jones :367).

Concisely, feminism looks towards an egalitarian future, a humanistic approach to

all women’s problems, a liberal social set-up that promises a humane and just life for

all.

(II)

The voice o f women in Canada has always been a loud cry o f protest against

social structures and male hegemony. Marginalized, oppressed and victimized by

social setups, the conditions o f Canadian women were no better than in other countries

across the globe. The quest for a private space and the assertion of the inner self was

therefore a prime concern for Canadian women. While consciousness against

subjugation had been a longstanding one, it took the form o f an organized movement

in 1929, with feminists voicing their demand for political rights, and the right to vote

and elect representatives. The Suffrage movement was a positive step in the direction

of giving women the right to voice their public opinion, and have a say in the

constitutional formation of their government.10

A pertinent question often addressed by the feminist theorists was—why were

women obliterated from literary history? Canadian women questioned their

marginalization and the efforts by social constructs to repress their inner voice, and

thereby silence them. Dorothy Smith argued that these institutions have always

exerted control over women and have excluded them from the expression of their

independent thought.
 228

Thus, tiie second phase of the Canadian feminist movement from 1960 onwards,

.. set out to formulate theories that linked political action with scholarly analysis,

and feminism became a serious pursuit in academia” (Parameswaran: 54).Its aim and

objective was to create a space for women, so that they may be able to articulate and

express their inner selves in their writings thereby creating an aura o f social

awareness. The movement also sought to establish a literary canon for women,

retrieve their lost and neglected works from literary history, and place them before the

reading public. Nevertheless, the questions that now surfaced both in English and in

French speaking Canada were - how should one write as a woman? Should women’s

language be different from their male counterparts? Discussing the situation, eminent

Canadian critic Barbara Godard pointed out that, Canadian women writers were

engaged in exploring “...how to write that difference implicit in her sexuality into the

literary text” (Godard 1987:2). These writers, while delving into the reasons for this

qualitative differentiation, re-looked into their subjective realities, and concluded that,

the difference is partly rooted in their biological formation. In this context, Shirin

Kudchedkar provides explanation that is more realistic:

A woman’s sexual experience is at a level different from a man’s, while her

experience as a bearer of children sets her totally apart from him. How she lives

these experiences, how she images and reconstitutes them, how she perceives the

difference between what she knows them to be and the manner in which society

represents them -these are among the factors that constitute her subjective reality

(Kudchedkar :84).

The aim of the movement was therefore, to provide women writers “ ...new

dimensions o f space, to allow women freedom o f movement, without hesitancy, or

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fear, or obstacle, through geographic and political spaces, but, more fundamentally,

through cultural, conceptual, and imaginary spaces” (Godard, 1987:2). This new

ideology encouraged them to explore their own selves and write their experiences, in a

language that singularly expressed their feelings and thought. In this context,

Parameswaran writes:

... wordplay, search into the semantic sources, experimentation o f words on

page, sound effects of words, words in song, words dissected and reassembled

... wave upon wave they came to revise the old canon (Parameswaran :55).

Moreover, this new form o f creative art11, when deconstructed revealed multiple

voices of the experiences o f women, and opened up many untold stories o f female

oppression. Salat relates this environment o f social transformation in the following

words:

More and more women, therefore, took to writing as a profession or a vocation

and their writings portrayed the aspirations and ambitions o f the ‘new woman’

and her yearnings for independence and liberation from the limiting constraints

of the convention -ridden society (Salat :62),

The quest for self and a humanistic approach to women’s problems became a

pervasive theme in al£m ost all literary works. Shulamith Firestone expresses this

attitude in the following words:

The development o f ‘female’ a r t ... is progressive: an exploration of the strictly

female reality is a necessary step to correct the wrap in a sexually biased culture

(Firestone: 167).
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It may therefore be said that the movement “ ...acted as a catalyst to generate a

greater awareness o f the need for self-definition and self— assertion among Canadian

women as it did elsewhere in die world” (Salat: 62).

Henceforth, Canadian women writers reflected in their works, the social setup as

well as life patterns o f women and realities o f their existence. Literature thus became a

forum for understanding women’s problems as well a platform for raising social

consciousness.18 Cheri Registe^wrote that literary

writings should:

1. Serve as a forum for women; 2. Help to achieve cultural androgyny; 3. Provide

role models;4. Promote sisterhood; and 5.Augment consciousness raising (18-

19).

Narrating the stories o f the lives of women became an effective strategy for

voicing their sensibilities in patriarchal setup. It helped to create a private space for

women, where language became a metaphor for exerting their selves. This situation

has been explained by Loma Irvine.

Thus although both male and female writers in Canada construct narrative

patterns different from those that dominate American literature, women’s

narratives, often covertly, more commonly, stress gender issues ... situate and

celebrate a maternal domain that presents an alternative structuring to that of

patriarchal systems....Women writers find that subversive language powerfully

connects their cultural and psychological situations their positions as Canadians

and as women.” (Irvine: 10).

What is also notable is that in a multicultural country like Canada, feminist

literary criticism becomes pluralistic in its context, as the women’s movement differed
 231

between French and English Canada. In Quebec, women’s movement was more

radical in its concepts; adhered to revolt in language and form of expression, and

focused on issues raised by post-structuralists— Roland Barthes, Jacques Derida, and

feminist thinkers like Luce Irigary and Helene Cixous. Leading feminist writers in

French Canada were Nicole Brossard, Madeleine Gagnon and Denise Desautels, while

English Canada too had famous women writers namely, Sheila Watson, Margaret

Laurence, Mavis Gallant, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and Audrey Thomas,

As for the progression of the feminist movement12 in English Canada, it is

observed that feminist critics “ ...embarked on their own programme to identify

discrimination and advance the status of women writers” (Godard 1987: 7).

Consequently, the ‘Royal Commission on the Status of Women’ took the first step in

mapping out the differences on grounds o f sex. Sandra Gwyn’s in her introduction to

her report to that Commission, published as Women in the Arts in Canada (1971),

outlined “...the material and psychological obstacles women must overcome if they

are to be writers at all, handicapped as they are by their deeply ingrained conditioning

to serve others, which deprives, them of the ruthlessness to become major artists, and

by their time -consuming roles as wives and mothers” (Godard, 1987:7). The lack of

facilities and amenities was a prime cause for women’s inability to exert their latent

talents and Gwyn drew the attention to the prevailing situation o f women’s education

in the country, which was responsible for meager literary productivity.

Susan Mann Trofimenkoff also highlighted gender issues when she argued that by

ignoring the role o f women in Canadian intellectual history, historians - mostly males

- had seriously limited their understanding of nationalism. Yet she maintained, that

the role of women in the development o f nationalism is difficult because, “...until

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relatively recently women did not leave tracts for study, did not write, and therefore by

implication did not think” (Trofimenkoff: 16). She was also o f the view that history

could have been written from a different perspective, if we could hear women’s stories

as well.

A glance at the literary history of the country reveals that women’s writings

dominated the literary scenario from the early days o f settlement. Frances Brooke’s

The History o f Emily Montague (1769), Anna Jameson’s journals, the works by

Catherine Parr Trail and Susanna Moodie, had distinctively reflected their lives in the

backwoods o f Canada. Exploring the situation Howells comments: “...best known

nineteenth century records of English women’s pioneer experience ...as they rewrite

male pioneer myths from the woman’s point o f view”(Howells: 16).Fraser too

observed that Canada had such a great proportion of distinguished women writers,

that in many ways the Canadian literary domain has become “the dominion of

women” (Fraser: xxi).

However, the situation of women in Canada is remarkably different from that of

other countries o f the world. Linda Hutcheon has highlighted this in conversation with

Kathleen O’Grady:

...our social situation as women in Canada is different even from that of

women in Britain or the U.S. - because of legal as well as cultural differences—

and our intellectual context is, for historical reasons, perhaps more o f a hybrid

than most (though obviously related to that of post-colonial nations). Framed

geographically and historically between two major Anglophone empires (past

and present), Canada has experienced an odd amalgam of British and American

influences and both have played their role in shaping our intellectual heritage.
 233

When you add the Quebec context, with its strong links to French feminism - the

hybridity increases.13

Thus, women in Canada feel that they have been doubly marginalized in then-

own land, one by the dominating traditional social system, and the other by the strong

cultural forces o f other neighboring nations. This sense o f marginalization leads them

to re-define themselves in a language that subverts the master narratives, “...through

ironic strategies o f exaggeration, understatement, or literalization.”21 The works of

women writers therefore, show an inclination for postmodern techniques o f expression

as it offers greater scope for parodying their situations. Kroetsch puts it: “...modem

literature closed the boundaries; what is needed is a breaking across these boundaries,

a post-modem literature” (Hutcheon, 1988:4).

Women writings were therefore, marked by a shifting o f generic boundaries,

blurring o f distinctions between reality and fiction, regional representations and the re­

writing o f history. Many o f these women writers stressed upon the use o f local colour

in their fiction. As Kroetsch observes: “Canadian writing treats the city as an invisible

presence. The stories are written for urban audiences: the metaphorical base is

adamantly rural or small-town.” (Kroetsch, 1989: 67) In addition, Linda Hutcheon

observes: “Canada can in some ways be defined as a country whose articulation of its

national identity has sprung from regionalist impulses: the eccentric forces o f Quebec,

the Maritimes in the west” (Hutcheon,1988:4).

Canada is made up of different regions, The Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario and

British Columbia. All these regions have their own distinctive cultural identities,

which are explored and presented by writers in their texts. In this context W. J. Keith

observes: “Every Canadian may be said to possess at least two loyalties that are not
 234

always easily reconcilable: one to the country, one to the local region which is not

necessarily a province” (Keith, 1985:8). In addition, Robert Wilson echoes similar

thoughts when he says, “Canadians tend to think o f themselves in obsessions and also

think o f themselves as, primarily regional...” (Wilson, 1990:49). This regional

representation is often seen in the writings of Laurence, Atwood and Munro. These

writers have highlighted the region as a miniature o f the universe. Thus, we may say

that Canadian feminist writings were characterized by postmodern narrative strategies

and had strong inclination towards the local colour story.

The early seventies ushered in a period o f new awareness in feminist thinking.

Writings projected social injustices towards women and sought to create

consciousness towards victimization. Accomplished writers such as, Margaret

Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and others were deeply concerned by the

social realities. Their works drew attention on women’s deprivations in patriarchal

hegemony.

Margaret Laurence was a staunch supporter o f the women’s cause and upheld

stringent feministic views in her writing. She problematized women’s struggle to

survive, and in the process seek her identity, Margaret Atwood too took up the issues

o f gender-politics, patriarchal power dominance and hegemony. Like Laurence,

Atwood too strongly believed in the social responsibilities of the creative writer. Both

the writers were concerned with the creation of a woman’s space in patriarchal

constructs and the desire to evolve their distinctive self-identities. Power Politics

(1971) is a singular feministic work, where Atwood questions relationships, stating

that love is only a power game: language, the fist/proclaims by squeezing/is for the

weak only” (Atwood: 31).

 .235

Atwood’s writings are therefore an attempt to focus on women discourse, the

quest for identity for women, as well as o f the nation within the feminist

epistemology. In Linda Hutcheon’s opinion:

In all her writings, Atwood shows herself to be the tireless explorer and exposer

of cultural cliches and stereotypes, in particular of those that effect women.

(1969:313). Thus, Atwood’s works are characterized by a strong sense o f feminist

consciousness, gender politics and a desire to transform the social structures, that

hinders women’s progress.

Ill

The concept of feminism as outlined in the fiction o f Alice Munro is widely

different from her contemporaries in its inteipretation and applications. As an ideology

for social reformation and redressal of injustices towards women, Munro does not take

any polemical stance, but rather offers a narrative o f women’s social conditioning, the

compulsions under which they lead their lives, and their hopes for future changes. Her

concern at women’s situations, and their possible reform echoes in the voice o f Del’s

mother, when she prophecies:

There is a change coming I think in the lives o f girls and women. Yes. But it is

up to us to make it come. All women have had up till now has been their

connection with men. All we have had. No more lives of our own, really than

domestic animals (Lives : 146).

What Munro seeks to assert is that art is not simply a medium for upholding

feminist agenda, but a means for creating social awareness o f the basic problems of

women in all its perspectives. Her fiction visualizes the lives of women in its entirety.

It becomes the voice of every woman speaking out about universal problems in male-
 236

dominated society. In her writings, Munro presents the convention ridden society from

the early forties to the present times. Her texts open-up the world o f women and

examine the bond that binds their community lives.

Women down the ages have been unable to articulate their sensibilities, and

Munro in her fiction takes up these sensitive issues, as she problematizes the

prominent binaries that mark patriarchal discourses. Munro cannot be called a feminist

writer as Atwood and Laurence are. Nor can her writing be called a didactic

manifestation o f the feminist movement. It is rather a presentation o f an integrated

vision of life, which promises equal treatment to both the sexes in society. In this

context, Redekop observes; “Munro has no overt feminist agenda and yet no writer is

more devastatingly effective at dismantling the operations of our patriarchal

structures” (Redekop: xii).

Acutely conscious o f the diverse problems o f the lives o f women, Munro focuses

her art on their marginalized lives, gender constraints and male hegemony in social

constructs. Each work is an interpretation o f life and is an invaluable document of

human relationships, as well as female experience under social values and

expectations. In her work, Munro explores women’s role in different situation of life—

as a young girl, a career woman, a lover, wife or mother. In each o f these roles,

women are placed in conflicting situations, and are faced with alternatives selves, one

for the public and the other for the inner private self. Through her art, Munro probed

into the female psyche and laid bare the subtle sensibilities o f a woman’s heart. This

art o f representing women’s feelings and emotions in fiction was a pioneering attempt,

as it reflected the lives o f woman in its entirety from the early adolescence, to maturity

and old age. It gave a new paradigm to literary creativity, as for the first time,
 237

Canadian women found a reflection of their selves mirrored in Munro’s chronicle of

women’s social history down the decades. A visionary writer, Munro’s concern is for

women, their subjugation and the repression o f their inner voice. The aim of her art is

to probe into the sensitive areas of human heart and create an environment of

consciousness for social change.

As a writer, Munro’s focus is on her birthplace in the small rural town of

Wingham in south-western Ontario, which she mythologizes as Huron or Wawanash

County in most of her stories. This interest in small-town settings invites comparison

to American writers of the rural South, such as Faulkner and Flannery O’ Connor.

Munro concentrates upon the lives o f women in those regions in its minutest detail and

day-to-day existence. She records her observations as well as her response as an

artist, to the rural Canadian society to which she primarily belonged. Rasporich has

has clearly summed up Munro’s fascination for the regional, the locale. As she puts it:

...place is very much identity and despite the houses and social conventions

which trapped these female characters in the past, they are nostalgic and loyal to

their small towns, Jubilee and Hanratty and Dalgleish, because such places are

woven into selfness. Theirs is a country o f the mind which holds the psyche

together in the desperate relativism and unpredictability of modem city life

which begins to unfold in Munro’s fiction (Rasporich: 123).

!

Acknowledging her attachment to her roots, that of small town Ontario, which is

repeatedly depicted in her art she observes: “I write about myself because I am the

only troth I know” (Rasporich: xix).

Munro thus, universalizes the small township Ontario, and it becomes a

macrocosm of the world. The quest for identity as sought by Canadians in general and
 238

addressed by Northrop Frye, “Where is here?”(Frye, 1971: 220) finds its answer in the

fiction o f Munro. This focusing on a particular region is part of the Canadian feminist

agenda for voicing protest against dominant cultural hegemony. This presentation of

an accurate detail o f the locale is seen in words of Del Jordan, when she says,

“People’s lives in Jubilee, as elsewhere ... were dull, simple, amazing and

unfathomable” (Lives: 277). The word “elsewhere” according to W. J. Keith is an

essential part of the insight, in Munro “ ...where the universal is always incarnate in

the local and the particular” (Keith: 161 -62).

Another aspect of Munro’s art is the attempt to fictionalize and re-write history.

In most of her stories, Munro draws upon the Great Depression of the 1930s, as a

structural base. This evoking of the aftereffects of this historical event is explained by

Linda Hutcheon when she says that it is seeing “...history as a construction...a

process of selecting, ordering, and narrating ... while at the same time offering a

variety of historical perspectives” (Hutcheon ,1988: 15). Thus, we see that in “Walker

Brothers Cowboy” Helen Louise’s father, during the depression when prices fall, is

unable to continue with his fox fanning, and is compelled to become “ ...a pedlar

knocking at backwoods kitchens” (Dance: 4). This story telling of the past is a

feministic attempt to re-create history, and the quest of one’s inner self against the

backdrop of a particular historical event. Coral Ann Howells puts it:

Their story-telling represents the imaginative effort to write oneself into one's

inheritance by re-creating it from personal memory combined with the local

history and legends of that community (Howells: 35).

A notable feature of Munro’s art is that it voices the concerns of women, who

have not received proper representation in male texts and are glorified from the male
 239

viewpoint or have been placed in a minimum role in life. Her fiction draws and

interprets the life o f women in its reality and presents a silent protest against male-

dominated society. She says: “I don’t generalize. I don’t see beyond” (Rasporich: xii)

However, in her art one finds that she has moved beyond the superficial and

reflected on the universal problems o f women. As a literary artist, she “... filters and

refracts society through the prism o f her own imagination” (Rasporich: xii). The aim

of her writing is to portray women from the early forties and fifties, as they were in

their social and familial situations. Her art makes one realize that they were victimized

by male oriented social conventions. As Loma Irvine puts it: “Her female characters

are not new women: they represent past and present and dramatically act out old plots

of female desire, masochistic and apparently victimized” (Irvine:93). Simone de

Beauvoir has analyzed this victimization on grounds o f sex and the notion o f pre-fixed

role of two sexes in society from ancient civilization:

The Golden Age o f Woman is only a myth. To say that woman was the other is

to say that there did not exist between the sexes a reciprocal relation; Earth,

Mother, Goddess-she was no fellow creature in man’s eyes; it was beyond the

human realm that her power was affirmed, and she was therefore outside o f that

realm. Society has always been male; political power has always been in the

hands o f men (Beauvoir: 70),

Moreover, most o f her women characters are seen to lead a confined life

performing their domestic chores and fillfilling their duties as daughters, wives and

mothers. In Lives o f Girls and Women Del’s Aunt Elspeth and Auntie Grace, spend

their lives looking after her Uncle Craig, who works as a clerk in the local township.

Del tells us, these women, "... respected men’s work beyond anything; they also
 240

laughed at it And they would never meddle with it; between men’s work and

women’s work was the clearest line drawn” (Lives :27),

The works of the womenfolk of the day is also highlighted here, which consisted

of: ... morning marathons of floor scrubbing, cucumber hoeing, potato

digging, bean and tomato picking, canning, pickling, washing, starching,

sprinkling, ironing, waxing, baking. They were not idle sitting there; their laps

full of work— -cherries to be stored, peas to be shelled, apples to be cored (Lives:

36).

However, not all women were content with this way of living. Del’s mother

was revolutionary in spirit and sought to bring radical changes is the social system.

She would drive a car; sell encyclopedias, discussed books such as Antigone,

Hamlet, The Republic and Das Capital. She opposed compulsory religious

education in schools, and asserted that: “God was made by man, not the other way

around” (Lives: 89). Through the portrayal of Mrs. Jordan, Munro sought to focus on

the need for social reform, thus creating a consciousness o f the victimization of

women. By re-telling the many untold stories of women’s marginalization, because

of gender biasness, Munro’s seems to be driving home the fundamental realities of a

woman’s life. Her stories shed light on the dark places o f women’s existence. “By

turning women’s lives into narrative, Munro denies women the secrecy that has

traditionally kept them mysterious and articulates the problems they encounter as

desiring subjects” (Irvine: 95).

Society has always looked at woman as the other and objects for sexual

gratification, and Munro’s protagonists who are in their either adolescence, or

 241

adulthood try to combat life, in quest o f their inner selves. Thus, the voice of the

individual female seeking identity becomes the focal point in Munrovian fiction. In

her attempt to establish her true self, the protagonist has at times, to “ ...shake free of

conventional sexual roles in order to achieve independence and maturity in a modem,

urban context” (Rasporich :xii).

The reconstruction o f an inner space and position for women, against the

traditional gender patterns and social impositions, therefore becomes the prime

concern o f Munro. In her presentation of women’s problems, Munro seemed to be

considerably influenced by the Anglo American feminist Elaine Showalter, who

asserted that the female phase of the feminist movement from 1920 to the present day

. .is a phase o f self-discovery, a search for identity” (Showalter ,1977:13). This quest

for selfhood becomes a recurring concern for all Munro’s heroines, as they face the

challenges o f life. Thus, we see that many o f them move from the small rural town of

Ontario to the sophisticated city life of Vancouver, and other places in quest o f their

inner voices.

Both Del Jordan and Rose, Munro’s masterly creations try to break free from all

social bindings and obligations. This becomes the guiding force that propels and

motivates the young protagonists to move forward in life. The female quest for

identity is seen to assume paramount significance in Lives o f Girls and Women. Here

Munro draws her characters from the common middle class, who throw adequate light

on fee social position o f women and their living conditions. Del, fee young

protagonist, is fee voice o f the author trying to establish her individual self, in a setup

that is at times hostile and defiant. Written in fee classic manner o f fee
 242

Bildungsroman, Del’s story marks the different stages of growing up—from

adolescence to maturity. The trying experiences o f the onset o f puberty, initiation into

adulthood, the first experiences o f love, sex and finally Del’s decision to become a

writer are all realistically presented. In projecting Del’s story, Munro here takes into

consideration the social attitudes, moral and ethical conventions towards sex, virginity

and marriage, that prevailed in the 1930s and 40s. Thus, we see that while Del’s

mother warns her about the pitfalls of infatuations and sexual adventures: “Use your

brains. Don’t be distracted, over a man; your life will never be your own. You will get

the burden; a woman always does {Lives :193).

Del, however points out that birth control measures are a common matter these

days. That the burden o f sexual responsibility actually rests on the girl is also asserted

by Naomi, when quoting her mother she says:

It’s the girl who is responsible because our sex organs are on the inside and

their’s are on the outside and we can control our urges better than they can. A

boy can’t help himself (Lives :147).

A great difference therefore exists between the strong-willed Del, conscious of

her self, and her friend Naomi, an embodiment o f the up-to-date girls working in the

Creamery. Munro points out that these girls, ‘...were firmly set towards marriage,

whether they were perfect old maids or discreet adventuresses, like Fern...’ (Lives

199).

Del however, disliked the normal lives of these girls which:

 ...was showers, linen and pots and pans and silverware, that complicated

feminine order; then turning it over, it was the life the Gay-la Dance Hall,

driving drunk at night along black roads, listening to men’s jokes, putting up with

and warily fighting with men and getting hold o f them , getting hold-One side of

that life could not exist without the other, and by undertaking and getting used to

them both a girl was putting herself on the road to marriage ( Lives : 212).

She hated being such female stereotypes and was adverse to any compromise in

life. She was determined to find her own existence, and be as defiant as any man

would be. As she firmly asserts: “And I was not going to be able to do it” (Lives

212).To her, life was full of promises and it was one’s privilege to lead it with a strong

sense of individuality. Del’s quest for the truth of life leads her to certain conclusions

about love, sex and religion. For her sex seemed all surrender - not the woman’s to the

man but the person’s to the body, an act of pure faith and freedom in humility.

Yet when Garnet talked of baptizing her after ardent lovemaking, she

vehemently resists and is unwilling to surrender herself, or even 1c se her self under

domination. As she observes:

I was too amazed to be angry, I forgot to be frightened, it seemed to me

impossible that he should not understand that all the^granted him were in play,

that 1 meant to keep him sewed up in his golden lover’s skin forever, even if five

minutes before I had talked about marrying him( Lives: 261).

Del’s protest against male tendency to overpower the other is different from her

mother’s, who in spite of her radical ideas is not able to establish the female voice,

and is looked upon as queer and eccentric. Del’s story, marked by startling
 244

revelations, sexual awakening, the daze o f sex, and bodily desires o f adolescence is

also a form of the silent but firm protest against the social order. Through her art of

narration, Munro draws attention to the universal problems o f women’s lives. Her

narrator Del becomes a true observer of life. Over and above, Del’s ambition to be a

writer, voices her ambition to probe into the living conditions o f women and project

the realities o f life through the prism of art.

Like Del, Munro’s other protagonists too are placed in similar situations in life

but are never thwarted, and do not take a pessimistic view o f life. In Something I ’ve

Been Meaning to Tell You, we see that women are in their matured stage o f life, and

axe economically self-reliant. Although they are liberated, yet are forced to

compromise with a world order that is inhumane, cruel and unjust. Thus, their

condition is not an improvement upon that o f Del’s aunts, but one o f sufferings,

repression, unfulfilled desires, and a sense o f isolation. However, being an

embodiment o f their creator with a spirit to fight domination, social injustices and

victimization, they emerge in the end as individuals with strong integrity and

personality. Here the feminist quest for identity becomes a persisting force, though

their situations remain many a time unresolved. This collection also explores intense

sexual relationships and conflicts, which are repeatedly fraught with, betrayal,

conceit and hatred. In “The Executioners”, Helena contemplates revenge, when

Howard Troy taunts her in class:

Punishments. I drought o f walking on Howard Troy’s eyes. Driving spikes into

his eyes. The spikes would be on the soles o f my shoes, they would be long and

sharp. His eyeballs would bulge out, unprotected, as big as overturned basins,
 245

and I would walk on them, puncturing, flattening, bloodying, at a calm pace,. .1

would have liked his head tom from his body, flesh pulpy and dripping like

watermelon, limbs wrenched away; axes, saws, knives and hammers applied to

him (Something :120).

Marriage, separation, divorce and endless waiting for lovers, all come here under

the artist’s preview. Even the language, tones and attitudes towards sex take on a

liberated outlook. However, underlying theme o f the victimization o f women in

social, familial life remains inherent. Moreover, this volume deals with women o f the

urban middle class o f the late sixties, who were independent and updated, yet they too

fall a prey to social victimization. Impositions, abuse and male domination are the

themes round which these stories revolve. Narrated either in the first person or third,

they express the collective voice o f female experiences, gender biasness and social

attitudes towards women, where self-assertion becomes a perpetual occurrence.

Dance o f the Happy Shades, Munro’s first collection however looks into human

psychology in its developing stage. Here the female quest is slightly different from

that of other collections. The mark o f the individuality and a strong sense of self are

evident here, as the young protagonists experience psychological and emotional

upheavals in trying to accommodate themselves to their environment

This is evident in “Walker Brother’s Cowboy”, where Munro concentrates upon

the questing mind and introspective nature o f the child as she curiously observes the

adult world o f her father and his unconsummated love. Significantly, this story forms

the literal base for all the later chronicles o f female experience that follow.
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“Red Dress-1946”, addresses the adolescence stage where Munro’s protagonist

is on the threshold of adulthood and is about to go for her first dance in a new red

velvet dress in which the "... new stiff brassiere, jutted out surprisingly, with mature

authority, under the childish frills o f the collar” {Dance: 155). The young girl is about

to leave behind the safe, “boundaries of childhood” {Dance: 154), and step into the

adult world with its varied hopes and failures. The story thus narrates the child’s first

experience o f stepping into womanhood and her attempt to come to terms with life and

the social set up.

In another story o f this collection “The Office”, Munro problematizes the concept

o f society’s inability to accept a woman as writer, and the woman’s struggle to

establish herself. The story is an exposition o f the male prejudice against women

artists, as writing was generally considered as a male prerogative.

Nevertheless, the feminist quest is most explicit in “Boys and Girls”, where

Munro uncovers the social and familial attitudes towards the two sexes. The story

focuses on the social norms and conditions, which govern a young girl from her early

formative stage. The protagonist is a young girl growing up in a fox farm, where she

watches her father pelting foxes for skin trade. The narrator proudly helps her father in

feeding the foxes, bringing water and clearing the dishes. The feminist quest for her

inner self begins at this early stage when she thinks o f herself as equal to her brother

Laird and the other male co-workers in the farm. She dislikes the female world of her

mother but rather imitates her father, feels immense pride when she is compared with

the male workers, and tries to exercise strong masculine qualities. At night, under the

covers, she tells her brother stories of heroism, boldness and self-sacrifice that were
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essentially considered as male qualities. Yet, towards the end o f the story when her

father prepares to shoot the horse Flora, she lets the horse free. However, the horse is

eventually caught and butchered. The final statement by the girl’s father, “She’s only a

girl” (Dance: 130), when he comes to leam from Laird that she had done the deed,

sums up the male voice o f resignation and negligence. Thus, the notion of setting

Flora free symbolizes the young narrator’s desire for independence. Blodgett explains:

To be only a girl is rejection o f a radical kind, for in the world of the rural

Ontario farm in the late thirties and early forties aspirations that went beyond

those of sexual stereotypes were not simply wrong, they were taboo. They are

not corrected by anger, but by a more powerful method, by “good humour”. The

implication is that to be a girl is a destiny that carries with it a certain stupidity

that cannot be corrected (Blodgett: 33).

Thus, Dance o f the Happy Shades is marked by female spirit o f revolt against

social authority, and the dictates of male dominance. It initiates the voices of female

concern and protest, which Munro will take up repeatedly in the later works that

follow.

Who Do You Think You Are?, Munro’s fourth collection again takes up female

quest for identity, though the levels o f consciousness and context is different. Here the

canvas o f the artist is the larger world o f poverty-stricken West Hanratty. Rose, the

protagonist, is a victim o f social injustice and has to pay the penalty for being a

woman. Throughout her life, she encounters the crude and harsh realities o f existence,

in its rudimentai form but never loyses her individual identity. Like Munro, Rose too

leaves her small town of West Hanratty, for the West Coast, where she changes her
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rural accent, marries into a higher class, and then enters into world o f glamour and

popularity. However, in the end she returns to the place o f her origin, with newer

insights.

Sensitive issues such as, sexual abuse, victimization, child beatings etc, all prevail

in this text as the author lays bare the layer o f injustices meted on the girl-child and

women.

In the opening chapter “Royal Beatings”, Rose’s father, at the instigation of her

stepmother Flo, flogs the young Rose. This primitive act o f barbarity is looked upon

by Rose both as a participant and a third person observer. She remains emotionless,

playing a role in the scheme o f things. Munro points out that this entire episode is
rfrjsUid
escaped by Brian, Rose’s younger brother who flees, “... out the woodshed door, to do

as he likes. Being a boy, free to help or not, involve himself or not .Not committed to

the house hold struggle” (Who: 15).

As a matter o f fact black humor was a part o f life in that region where people

were of “limited intellectual and economic resource making their own savage and

exciting entertainment, by the melancholy understanding that in the end, old age and

death make all, men and women alike, victims”(Rasporich: 60). This human

predicament is pointed by the artist, through the characterization o f Hat Nettleton, tire

horsewhipper, who had once been a terror in his youth, and is now mellowed with age.

Munro reflects male desire and the resultant sexual assaults, in the form o f physical

abuse of the half-witted Franny by boys, including her own brother. Rose too becomes

a victim o f lust, when she travels to Toronto in a train alone, for the first time, in her

life. A man, disguised as a United Church minister, tries to satisfy his passion by
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trying to molest her, on the pretexts of reading his newspaper. “It made her feel

uncomfortable, resentful, slightly disgusted, trapped and wary” {Who :75)

Rose’s outlook changes as she matures and becomes the author’s first independent

career woman. Undergoing many trying situations of life, she learns to fight back and

survive. She becomes conscious of the capacity to attract men, and mobilize them for

her own needs. She falls in love with Patrick, breaks up the engagement, and then

agrees to marry him. This satisfies her ego, and gives her a feeling of power. As she

says: “It was really vanity, it was vanity pure and simple, to resurrect him, to bring

back his happiness. To see if she could do that. She could resist such a test of power

(Who: 97).

The eventual break-up of her marriage, her affair with Clifford point to the fact

that she had let things happen, as she had wanted them to be. However, she is

disturbed by the fragmentariness of life, which is highlighted by her deep love for

Simon, his sudden disappearance, and her coming to learn of his death. This

experience dawns in her the realization of the fragility of all human lives.

In drawing the character o f Rose, Munro seems to elucidate women’s attempt to

voice themselves against male hierarchy and establish the viewpoint that women ^ not

inferior to men. Thus, women’s persistent quest for identity becomes a pervasive

factor in this fiction. Rose is troubled by the question ‘who do you think you are?',

and her inner self tries to work out this puzzle, as she plays different roles in life, as

- child, wife, lover, actress and as a mother. Performing these multiple roles, she

realizes in the end that there is no unified self, and that a women’s inner self is made

up of a multiplicity of identities. In her return to Hanratty, she realizes her true self.
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In her next two collections, The Moons o f Jupiter and Progress o f Love, Munro

shifts her perspective to another phase of female experience, that o f menopause and

aging. This period, like the onset o f puberty is another trying phase, as the female

body now undergoes emotional, psychological, and physical change. However, the

quest for identity continues, though the situation now is quite different. Munro

examines in depth, the female consciousness at this juncture o f life—desires, attitudes

towards sex and men, as well as their position in family and society. Belonging either

to the poor rural or to the middle class society, these women’s lives are conditioned by

their declining physical strengths, social norms and conventions. The quest for identity

still remains a vital force as these women in spite o f their declining physical abilities

remain cheerful and accept the challenges of life. Rasporich puts it:

Despite the anxiety and even suppressed hysteria o f their recognitions, however,

the cumulative emotional stance here is one of composure, endurance and

maturity; these women ultimately brave their new physical frontiers and

changing sexuality with interested recognition (Rasporich :70).

Munro records the entire genealogy of female voice, consisting of old maids,

aunts, mothers, grandmothers, and cousins who have recognized their positions and

have accepted with calm composure their changing conditions.

Here, Munro also draws our attention to the opposite sex and says that men

however are indifferent and even contemptuous towards women at this stage o f life. In

“Bardon Bus”, we see that the narrator, “an old maid” (Moons: 110), has a short affair

with X, an anthropologist, who has had numerous affairs in his life, as revealed by his
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friend Dennis. Later on Dennis tells the narrator that he has a new theory about the life

of women:

The way they have to live, compared to men. Compared to aging. Think of the

way your life should be, if you were a man. The choices you would have. I mean

sexual choices. You could start all over. Men do. It’s in all the novels and its in

life too. Men fall in love with younger women. Men can get younger women.

The new marriage, new babies, new families (Moons: 121).

The narrator, however remains unperturbed at this observation and calmly

replies: “Its only by natural renunciation and by accepting deprivation, that we prepare

for death and therefore that we get any happiness...” (Moons: 121).

Disinterestedness, disgust and even hatred towards women who have lost their

sexual appeal because o f their approaching middle age is a part of male psyche, and

Munro presents this aspect of life from the women’s viewpoint. “In Labor Day

Dinner”, George tells Roberta:

“Your armpits are flabby”. To which she replies, “Are they? I’ll put on

something with sleeves” ... ‘A harsh satisfaction of airing disgust. He is

disgusted by her aging body’. Finally, she resolves: ‘She must get away, live

alone, wear sleeves’ (Moons :137).

Similar attitudes are observed in “Lichen”, where Stella, is in her middle age, and

“...the sort of women who has to come bursting out o f the female envelope at this age,

flaunting fat or an indecent scrawniness, sprouting warts and facial hair, refusing to
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cover pasty veined legs, almost gleeful about it, as if this was what she’d wanted to do

all along” (Progress: 33).

Stella had been married to David for twenty-one years, and separated for eight

(Progress ;34). Now after a long gap, David comes to visit Stella along with his latest

love, Catherine. What may be observed here is that, while the ravages o f time has

taken its toll on Stella, it has failed to affect David who caries on Ws affairs with

young women and girls. To David, Stella is a woman who has lost her beauty, and

prime, and whose appearance creates repulsion:

The outline o f the breast has disappeared. You would never know that the legs

were legs. The black has turned to grey, to the soft, dry color of a plant

mysteriously nourished on the rocks (.Progress; 55).

Yet women such as Stella, Roberta and others have not lost their jest for life, and

have all the pleasures o f life. Reviewing the progress of love at this juncture of a

woman’s life, Munro shows that for females “ ...sex is not one thing ... for women,

sexual relations and sexuality can filter into many aspects of lived

experience”(.Rasporich: 77). Women, by their inherent nature are vulnerable to men

during the period o f sexual initiation as well as sexual decline. Referring to Munro’s

representation of middle-aged women, Martin argues that, Munro is demonstrating the

social convention that values women according to their youth and beauty. By

emphasizing on the importance o f “positive representations” (Martin: 92) o f middle

age, Munro is only highlighting that, aging process death and loss are as much a part

o f life as youth and beauty.

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However, the artist is not content to picture women in their prime only. In

“Pictures o f Ice”, Munro looks at aging men too. Her representation of Austin Cobbet,

whose inability to accept the realities of life, makes him end his life by drowning.

Munro tells us at the very opening o f the story;

Three weeks before he died-ckowned in a boating accident in a lake whose name

nobody had heard him mention -Austin Cobbett stood deep in a three-way

mirror in Crawford’s Men’s Wear... (Friend: 137).

Here the salesman tells him, “There’s no old men’s clothes, no old ladies’

clothes anymore. Style applies to everybody” {Friend-. 137).

Desire for youth and vitality, is a part o f human nature, and Austin is no

exception. As the narrator o f the story tells us, after the death o f his wife, Austin,

“ ...had lost weight, his muscles had shrunk, he was getting the pot-bellied caved-in

shape o f an old man. His neck was corded and his nose lengthened and his cheeks

drooping {Friend-. 137-8). Yet, in his attempt to conceal loneliness, avoid the

sympathy and consideration o f all, he circulates the news that he would retire to

Hawaii sea resort, marry a young widow, spend a fulfilling life, read and play golf.

Again, in this collection Munro shows that femininity and motherhood are

inherent in female nature. Motherhood receives prime significance in “Mile City

Montana”, where the narrator, when her child slips into a pool, cries out in desperation

“Where are the children?”(P rogrm ; 104). This incident brings out basic female

sensibility that qualifies a woman.

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Munro in her art, also looks at life from another angle o f vision, that o f aging,

senility and death. In “Winter Wind”, Aunt Madge, who is in the nursing home,

. .lives on and on, unrecognizable , unrecognizing, completely divested o f herself,

dried up like a little monkey, past all memory and past bewilderment ,free”

(Something: 194).

“Spelling” gives a vivid picture o f the helpless state o f human life in old age and

advancing death. Here Munro draws women who are in the County Home, where,

“Bodies were fed and wiped, taken up and tied in chairs, untied and put to bed. Taking

in oxygen, giving out carbon dioxide, they continued to participate in the life o f the

world” (Who: 226). What Munro wants us to understand is that, life has its own

challenges, and one has to accept it as a part of life.

Munro takes up another aspect of women’s sensibility in her fiction when she

takes up the issues o f deserted women, left alone to fend their way in life. “Circle of

Prayer” (Progress ), shows Trudy deserted by her husband Dan, for a young woman,

but she remains nonchalant at his going. She shows no interest when he returns, as she

has become used to the ways o f her husband. Trudy’s will power and fortitude,

enables her to resist servile male subjugation. Dan’s mother too undergoes similar

situations in life, but unlike her daughter-in-law, she confines herself to her situation.

Trudy thus symbolizes the feminist impulse o f fighting against male domination, her

sympathy for Dan’s mother reflects the spirit o f unity, companionship, and sisterhood

prevalent amongst women, a feature highlighted upon by feminist ideology.

In her other two collections, Open Secrets, (1994), The Love o f A Good Woman

(1998), Munro combines phases o f young age, and maturity in a woman’s life. Male
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dominance, injustices, social inequities are all present as Munro repeatedly explores

women’s experiences in various situations o f life. The quest for self-entity remains an

inevitable force, which propels the protagonists to face the realities o f life. Deceit,

pretensions, false hopes and promises, unfulfilled desires and longings, male

chauvinism and expectations repeatedly frustrated, are some of the facts of existence,

taken up by the author in these collections.

In “Carried Away”, we see that the theme is more or less a repetition of “How I

Met My Husband” where Louisa, “went on expecting a letter everyday, and nothing

came” {Something: 39). Betrayal and false maneuverings by men dominate the text

and the story ends with Louisa’s self-realization. She understands that the man had

been fooling with her all along: “Oh, what a kind o f trick was being played on her, or

what kind o f trick was she playing on herself! She would not have it” {Open Secrets:

55). In “The Jack Randa Hotel” in Open Secrets, the female assertion assumes a

different texture as Gail the protagonist, having been forsaken by her lover Will,

decides to follow him to Australia, in disguise, where he now resides with his new

love Sandy. Gail constructs a new identity for herself, writes letters to Will in

pseudonym and exercises her power to mobilize him. Being unperturbed by Will’s

betrayal o f trust, she undertakes this reckless adventure, only to prove that women are

not weak or frail, but are capable o f taking up any challenge o f life. The story closes

with the following:

Now it’s up to you to follow me {Open Secrets: 221).

In The Love o f A Good Woman, women issues becomes the central point o f the

writer’s concern. Insight into life, its predicaments and disaster are all delved into.
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Sex, crime, abortion all figure in this collection. As Marshall Bruce Gentry in his

review of The Love o f a Good Woman observes: “Much o f Munro’s feminism is in the

sadness we are led to feel over the maneuvers her women have had to teach

themselves for achieving any sort o f power”( Gentry, Website citation:par.3)The critic

also opines that in this collection, people are brought together by “ ...weakness,

silence, and denial rather than by sweet and open communication”.(Gentry, Website

citation:par, 4) In “Before the Change” male exploitation and social restrictions

imposed on women are revealed, as Munro shows that the protagonist is compelled by

her lover to think of aborting her child, as pregnancy before marriage would hamper

his position as Minister o f the Theological College. Side by side, Munro presents

ironically, the protagonist’s father who is a doctor, performs abortions himself, but

suffers a severe heart attack that ultimately takes his life, when he learns the truth

about his daughter. She speculates:

Change the law, change the person. Yet we don’t want everything- not the whole

story-to be dictated from outside. We don’t want what we are, all we are to be

concocted that way (Love: 332).

Concern o f aging and entry into middle age also figures in this collection as in

“Jakarta” the characters are aware that “... the progression got dimmer and it was hard

to sure just when you had arrived at where ever it was you were going” (Love : 94).

In all her works Munro, points out that in spite o f the adversaries o f life, her

protagonists do not give up their individuality, the spirit to resist the forces that try to

subjugate them. Over and above, they accept and face the challenges o f life with stoic
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endurance and composure. The quest for self-identity persistently motivates them

throughout their lives.

One important feature that feminist literary critics have pointed out is that,

women writers have time and again portrayed deranged women in order to voice their

protest against patriarchal order and dominance .Munro too takes up the question of

female insanity in her art, and we come across Violet, in “A Queer Streak” (Progress),

who suffers from senile dementia in her old age. Violet’s life too was one of sacrifice

for her sister, Dawn Rose, who had shown signs o f mental derangement at the age of

fourteen, for which Violet’s own engagement had been broken off. Towards the end of

the story, we see that when the young feminists visit her, she tells them the story of her

family history. Later on, they send her a letter sympathizing on her cause:

Thank you a million, million times for your help and openness. You have given

us a wonderful story. It is a classic story of anti-patriarchal rage. Your gift to us,

can we give it to others? What is called Female Craziness is nothing but

centuries of Frustration and Oppression. The part about the creek is wonderful

just by itself and how many women can identify! (Progress: 248).

Thus, Munro has addressed a very sensitive issue here when she problematizes

women’s deprivation, which leads to madness. Showalter had asserted: “...the mad

women have become an emblematic figure o f freedom and struggle” (Showalter 1985:

4). Munro is conscious o f the fact that, “.. .because women feel and are forced to

confront their physical wreckage, theirs would seem to be a more difficult struggle for

sanity, particularly at puberty and menopause” (Rasporich: 83).

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A s in g u la r c o n c e rn o f M u n ro ’s fic tio n is h e r in te r e s t in e x p lo rin g th e c o n c e p t o f

fe m in in ity in th e s o c io -c u ltu ra l m ilie u , a n a re a w id e ly a rg u e d u p o n b y fe m in is t

th in k in g . S im o n e d e B e a u v o ir o b s e rv e s :

T h e w e ig h t o f p a tria rc h a l tra d itio n e d u c a te s w o m a n in to n o th in g n e s s , a s s ig n in g

to h e r th e n o n -I, th e e m o tio n s , th e e m o tio n s th e b o d y p rin c ip le , n a tu re , w h ic h ,

m u s t b e o v e rc o m e b y M a n - th e - a s h e u n d e rta k e s th e w o rk o f c iv iliz a tio n ,

c re a tin g la n g u a g e s a n d c u ltu re s (B e a v o u r: 7 1 4 ).

M u n ro , th ro u g h h e r c h a ra c te rs q u e s tio n s th e s o c ia l c o n v e n tio n s a n d p ro te s ts

a g a in s t th e c o n c e p ts o f fe m in in ity , a s w e ll a s fe m in in e b e h a v io ra l p a tte rn s , e x p e c te d o f

w o m e n in s o c ia l s e tu p s . In “ B o y s a n d G irls ” , w e s e e th a t a lth o u g h th e g ra n d m o th e r o f

th e y o u n g p ro ta g o n is t u rg e s h e r to fo llo w s o c ia l n o r m s , s h e re v o lts a t it a n d sa y s: “ I

c o n tin u e d to s la m th e d o o rs a n d s it a s a w k w a rd ly a s p o s s ib le , th in k in g th a t b y s u c h

m e a s u re s I k e p t m y s e lf fre e ” (D a n c e : 1 2 2 ).

H o w e v e r, M u n r o ’s c h a ra c te rs a re n o t d iv e s te d o f th e ir fe m in in ity . T h e y to o h a v e

lo v e a n d s e x , e n te r in to re la tio n s h ip w ith m e n , b u t a t th e s a m e tim e re ta in th e ir

in d iv id u a lity . T h u s , th e in tric a te w o rk in g s o f th e h e a rt b e c o m e a p rim o rd ia l a re a o f

c o n c e rn fo r M u n ro . In h e r p e rs o n a l life , M u n ro to o h a d e x p e rie n c e d th e

tra n s fo rm a tio n a l c h a n g e s in th e C a n a d ia n s o c ie ty fro m th e e a rly fo rtie s . L ik e h e r

p ro ta g o n is t R o s e , M u n ro to o m o v e d th ro u g h e d u c a tio n fro m ru ra l O n ta rio to

V a n c o u v e r, m a rria g e , m o th e rh o o d a n d e v e n tu a lly d iv o rc e a n d re m a rria g e . S h e to o h a d

e x p e rie n c e d e c o n o m ic d e p riv a tio n a n d h a d p u lle d th ro u g h e v e ry c ris is in life , b u t h a d

a t th e sa m e tim e e s ta b lis h e d h e rs e lf a s th e fe m a le - a rtis t. T h is s to ic a c c e p ta n c e o f th e

c h a lle n g e s o f life is a ls o in g ra in e d in h e r c h a ra c te rs .L ik e M u n ro , th e y to o p ro te s t
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against set rales in silent revolution. As Virginia Woolf had asserted that the female

authors’ task is a^‘...uphill battle o f resisting the conventional female role, which is

obviously and historically determined...” (Woolf, 1980: 17). Simone de Beauvoir

sums up the situation thus: “Precisely because the concept of femininity is artificially

shaped by custom and fashion, it is imposed on women from without” (The Second

Sex: 683).

Munro’s art thus, voices the female concern for upliftment of the status and

dignity o f women, as well as their freedom from all social restraints. Del voicing her

creator’s concern says:

I felt that it was not so different from all other advice handed out to women, to

girls, advice that assumed being female made you damageable, that a certain

amount o f carelessness and solemn fuss and self-protection were called for,

whereas men were supposed to be able to go out and take on all kinds of

experience and shuck off what they didn’t want and come back proud (Lives;

147).

Significantly, enough all Munro’s characters are bonded in sisterhood. Familial

ties too form a strong base for the stories. In her fiction one comes across aunts,

cousins, grandmothers, and sisters, who are interdependent and share and care for each

other. Thus, in the opening story “Connection” (The Moons o f Jupiter), we come

across the narrator’s mother’s four maiden cousins, who in spite of their being

spinsters enjoy life in every aspect. Commenting on the work Loma Irvine says: “The

narrator remembers their cigarettes, their chocolates, their fondness for American

coffee and for liquor. Their sensuality depends on their independence. They make fun
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o f love, jokingly singing “The Indian Love Call” and “Woman Are Fickle”, song that

underline their rejection of marriage. Without men, they have pleasure and maintain

their own voices” (Irvine: 97). In sharp contrast to them are the cousins on the

narrator’s father. These women are thin and bent, and “ ...their faces were pale,

eyebrows thick and furry, eyes deep set” (Moons 25).Their lives were confined to

endless toils, cleaning, ironing, and cooking, without any connection with the outer

world. As the narrator says that she would no longer believe that “ ...people’s secrets

are defined and communicable, or their feelings full- blown and easy to recognize”

(Moons: 35). Munro here sets before us female characters that are on the one hand

independent, and enjoy every ounce of life, while on the other, those who are

generally confined, silent, and timid women with repressed emotions. Women,

belonging to the first category are dismissed by men for “ ...being too loud, too vulgar

to be taken seriously” (Irvine: 98).

As a woman writer probing into their lives, Munro examines the mother -

daughter relationship that features as groundwork for most of her stories. Feminist

literary critics have well argued that the favored relationship among women is a

subject for literary criticism. Critics such as Adrienne Rich and Nancy Chodorowhave

expressed similar viewpoints. In this context, Godard is of the view:

Unlike the male, the female has a more complex development to make, one

which involves the recognition of identity as well as of difference... In order for

women to grow into authentic individuals; they must explore their relationship

with their mothers, and by extension, their place in the matrilineal literary

tradition (Godard, 1987:12).

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Munro was herself strongly influenced by her mother, who died o f Parkinson’s

disease, and she acknowledged during a conversation with Geoff Hancock that: “ ...the

whole mother-daughter relationship interests me a great deal. It probably obsesses

me” (Hancock:215).

This obsession becomes a creative force in her works, and we find that Munro’s

protagonists are greatly motivated by the overwhelming presence o f their mothers.

Redekop maintains that Munro’s stories are:

Peopled with stepmothers, foster mothers, adoptive mothers, child mothers,

nurses, old maids mothering their parents, lovers mothering each other and

numerous women and men behaving in ways that could be described as

maternal. (Redekop: 4)

Munro has also showed that women are not always cowed down by male

domination. They too have their individual say in every familial matter and at times

exert their personality. In this context, Redekop observes:

The women in her stories are robust presences, and they exercise power in more

obvious ways: they tell stories; they read books; they have and voice opinion

(Redekop: 231).

Munro’s mother had a domineering personality, and it is obvious that in her

texts, Munro drew her women characters on her mother’s image. Here, reference may

be made o f Del’s mother who made a tremendous impact on her daughter, and was a

constant source o f embarrassment, as well as pride for young girl.

Feminist criticism is an exploration o f women’s writings, which are

characterized by an intense reflection on the female body as a subject of

discourse. These thinkers have forwarded the theory, that while writing about
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their inner selves, women have concentrated on the female bodily experiences,

feelings etc, which are very different from the male experience. For them, the

female body becomes the prime concern from which all writing proceeds.

For Munro too, female experience is of major interest, and the corpus of her

writings cover the entire range o f emotions, desires and pleasures o f the female body.

In her writings one comes across singular female experience such as menstruating,

love-making and even childbirth, which is used as a metaphor in Who Do You Think

You Are? In Progress o f Love the metamorphosis o f the female body is taken up, and

Munro dwells on the menopausal, as well as the aging o f women. In ‘Meneseteung’,

Munro again refers to the female body and Almeda’s menstrual flow becomes a

reflection o f the flowering o f her creativity. This is symbolized by: “The grape pulp

and juice ... stained the swollen cloth a dark purple. Plop, pulp, into the basin

beneath” (“Meneseteung”: 68).

Dermot McCarthy observes: “Grape juice, menstrual blood, words—all flow into

the image of the river, the Meneseteung, which Meda sees as the symbol and subject

of the poem she needs to write (8). This flow o f blood may also be interpreted as a

signal of the absence o f conception as well as the realization o f her creative self.

Munro here tries to “write[s] from within a woman’s body without trapping that body

inside old symbols” (Redekop: 222).

In addition, her menstruating may be taken as a sign o f her continuing fertility, her

potentiality for future creation. Munro’s text thus valorizes the form o f ‘ecriture

fefm inim ,2S and the female jouissance’29. Thus, we may agree with Linda Hutcheon,

that in order to assert their inner selves, women, "... must define their subjectivity
 263

before they can question it: they must first assert the selfhood they have been denied

by the dominant culture before they can contest it” (Hutcheon: 6).

In the story “Meneseteung” (Friend of My Youth) Munro, by retrieving the lost

nineteenth century poetess, Almeda Joynt Roth, from literary history, rehabilitates her

for evaluation and recognition. Also for Munro, female’s bodily experiences, becomes

a subject of discourse as highlighted by French feminists such as Helene Cixous and

others.

IV

Women’s movement in Canada has been one o f the greatest social movements of

the country. Both the first and second wave had its tremendous impact on the socio­

cultural and political life of women in Canada. It brought about social reforms, by

providing legal protection to women from injustices and oppressions. In the literary

field, it expanded the horizon of creative mind, and provided a space for women. A

pertinent question that came to be addressed by the feminist thinkers was the need for

a language that would adequately express women’s sensibilities and emotions. In

French Canada, these writers were - Barbara Godard, Nicole Brassard, amongst

others. In English Canada too, many women writers such as, Margaret Laurence,

Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro, voiced their deep concern for women. Their

writings exposed the plight o f women in Canada, and sought to improve their living

conditions. Moreover, their writings centered on their native regions, which in its turn

became a projection o f the universal.

Against this backdrop of socio-cultural transformations and reforms, Munro’s

writings added new contours to feminist research and thought. It drew attention to the
 264

multidimensional aspects of the problems, faced by women in personal and social life.

Munro’s short stories therefore become the voice o f multitudes o f women, who found

a reflection o f their inner selves in Munro’s art. Her stories become the stories o f their

heart. It was an overflow o f their feelings pent up within. Women now felt a strong

sense of affinity with Munro, as she had spoken for them in a language that was

singularly their own.

Although Munro cannot be termed as a feminist writer in the sense of Margaret

Laurence and Margaret Atwood are, she is at heart an artist deeply concerned for

women. Her works are aimed to rouse social consciousness, so that women’s

conditions may be improved upon, and they may not be subjected to victimization.

Truly, Munro’s fiction, spells out the inner voice of women, their unheard cry against

injustices within the familial and the social framework. Women’s stories voice the

silent protest and hopes for change in the patriarchal mindset, dominating the socio

cultural norms and conventions. Society has subjected them to harassment, on grounds

o f gender constructs. Munro’s plea is one o f humanitarian consideration o f women’s

problems. Through her narratives, Munro has painstakingly delved into the innermost

recess o f a woman’s heart, its psychological implications, and has put into words, the

layers of untold stories o f pain and sufferings. No other writer in Canada has ever

talked of the problems o f women in such a manner, exposing the finer sensibilities of

women’s emotions, covering the entire span of a woman’s life from childhood to

decay and death. Herein lies her greatest achievement as a creative writer. Indeed, she

is a woman, thinking for women, and writing about women, an arena she understands

best.
 265

Notes

1. Freedman in Feminism adopts a refreshing approach by focusing on issues

rather than on thought. Focusing on the perennial question o f equality and

difference, the critic examines die ways in which this has been played out in

different areas o f feminist social and political theory.

2. From the Hebrew Bible and Greek philosophy to the present day, women

have been relegated to position of the other, while their male counterpart was

considered as having the human norm. In her book, Millet also attacked the

male bias in Freud psychoanalytical theory and analyzed selected passages by

D.H.Lawrence.

3. One concern of ‘gynocritics’ is to identify what are taken to be the

distinctively feminine subject matters in literature written by women- the world

of domesticity and giving birth, nurturing, or die mother-daughter, and woman-

to- woman relations. Another concern is to uncover in literary history a female

tradition. The third is to show that there is a distinctive feminine mode of

experience, or subjectivity in thinking, feeling, valuing, and perceiving oneself

and the outer world. Related to this is the attempt to specify a distinctively female

style o f narratology.

4. Suzanne Lamy illustrated the active process o f writing as an interdependent

activity that combines the process o f critical and creative thinking.

5. Nicole Brassard emerged as a writer and critic in Quebec in 1970, and did not

disassociate the creative from the critical process. Her contribution to literary
 266

theory is the perfect synchronization of the woman writer and the woman critic in

the mental space o f ‘desiring’ and ‘thinking’, the writing,

6. Feminists of the second wave popularly known as the ‘bra-buming’ period

condemned Freud’s theory, as it was a pointer to male dominance. Prominent

amongst them were Kate Millet, Betty Frieda, Germaine Greer, et al. However,

critics such as Juliet Mitchell, Nancy J.Chodorow were liberal in their attitude

7. Freud was defended by Juliet Mitchell and Jane Gallop.

8. The term phallocentric, which is o f feminist origin, denoted the assumption

that maleness is the natural and in fact only source of authority and power,

9. Feminist studies enabled many female authors to be highlighted. Among

them were Aphra Behr, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Joann Bailie, Kate

Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Giliman, and a number o f African -American

writers such as Zora Neale Hudson,

10. The women’s movement has been one o f the most significant and successful

movement in Canada. In the first wave, it challenged images o f women and of

femininity: the sexual division of labour in the home and the workplace;

outdated laws and inadequate social service; the organization and delivery of

heath care to women; and the reproduction o f stereotypic choices for girls and

women within the education system. It has uncovered and named violence

against women-sexual harassment, incest, rape, and wife abuse etc. “In 1988,

the Supreme Court ruled that the federal abortion law, which had seriously

restricted women’s access to abortion services, was unconstitutional. In 1986,

the federal government passed Bill C-62, dealing with affirmative action for

women, visible minorities such as native Canadians, and the disabled; in 1985
 267

the Manitoba government passed equal-value legislation. In 1981, the Ontario

Human Rights Code was amended to include protection against sexual

harassment; also in 1981, women’s right to equality was inscribed in Section

28 o f the new Canadian constitution”. [“Entering the World o f the Women’s

Movement”. Feminist Organizing fo r Change. The Contemporary Women's

Movement in Canada. Nancy Adamson et al 1988, p5.]

11. The phase was also marked by the publication o f magazines where women

were able to express their creativity. Examples o f which are "Lip” “The

Canadian Magazine" and “Chateline." Lip was one of the innovative radical

magazines that were produced in Vancouver collectively by Angela

Hrynuik, Daphne Marlatt, and Besty Warland and others. This collection

was interested in a feminist transformation of language. “Like Nicole

Brossard in the east, these west coast writers indulged in extensive wotd -

play, semantics, and study o f words, diction and meanings. The title lip had

many feminist interpretations, and had flip up pages like a note pad.

Unfortunately, it did not last more than five years (1987-1992), but it was an

excellent example o f feminist literary pursuit”,( Parameswaran 55).

12. In 1965, there were few women’s organizations in Canada, no women’s

Bookstores (because there were almost no books about women), and no

women’s studies courses in schools and universities. In contrast, today

almost all large urban centres, as well as many small towns and rural

communities have, rape crisis centres, shelters for battered wives, self-

defenses courses, women’s bookstores/music events/ art galleries; all

galleries; all universities have women’s studies courses (and many have
 268

extensive degree-granting programs in women’s studies) as well as women’s

centres.[Ref:Fe»izm? Organizing fo r Change, The Contemporary Women’s

movement in Canada. Nancy Adamson et al 1988 p5]

13. Linda Hutcheon (1997) in A Conversation with Kathleen O’ Grady, has

expressed clearly the Canadian situation. Voice o f the Shuttle has

republishing this interview from Rampike special issue environments (1), 9

(No. 2; 1998):20- 22.

14. According to Patricia Waugh ecriture ffm in in e is a “uniquely feminine style

o f writing characterized by disruption in the text; gaps, silences, puns,

rhythms, and new images all signal ecriture fe/minine. It is eccentric,

incomprehensible, and inconsistent and if such writing is difficult or

frustrating to read, it is because the feminine voice has been repressed for so

long, and can only speak in a borrowed language, that is unfamiliar when it

is heard”( Waugh p.335).Women writers have especially sought for a

language that would express women’ sensibilities effectively.

15. Feminist post structuralists have looked for the place o f the mother in

producing the jouissance that for critic Roland Barthes to Jacques Derrida in

turn produces and disseminates meaning, desire and language.

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