ILLUMINATING MULTIPLE OPPRESSIONS IN THE PLAY OF MOTHER OF 1084 BY MAHASWETA DEVI (original) (raw)
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MAHASWETA DEVI’S MOTHER OF 1084: AN EXPLORATION
‘Dramatic Realism’ means ‘objective experience’ and ‘social truth’ and in that drama becomes a powerful weapon for exposing and demolishing social evils and injustices. As an anti-establishment artist Mahasweta Devi always committed herself socially and ethically in order to give voice to the marginalized and the downtrodden. Like Shaw she employed drama not merely for faithful documentation of contemporary social evils, but as active medium for revolting against authority and other social constraints. The play Mother of 1084 (1997), actually a translation of her early Bengali novel, titled Hajar Churasir Ma, conscious of the political happenings of Naxalite Bengal, focuses on the exploitation and deprivation of the tribal and the marginalized people, the landless and the curse of landlordism and feudalism, and aboveall the neglected and subjugated fate of women. The plot, a diatribe against decadent social institutions articulates ‘the awakening of an apolitical mother’, which has an urban middle class setting. Through Brati’s (the protagonist) whose commitment to the revolutionary Communist ideology led to his killing in an ‘encounter’, self-sacrifice the dramatist debunked the ‘spent-up intellectuals’, ‘cocktail parties’, the meaningless ‘Godmen’ and the so called radicals. Somehow the play mirrors the whole gamut of a hypocritical culture with its brooding over the Bangladesh war, amorous scandals, a world of ‘affluence’, of ‘pseudo-religion’, selfishness, of drinking, whoring and abnormal relationships. Yet in Sujata, the deprived mother, ‘a new woman is born’. Sujata’s past life, her isolation, her philandering husband, her unwanted motherhood all ultimately ends up in her self-realization which itself becomes a convenient and powerful protest against the rotten societal value system. Key Words Social reality, problem play, anti-establishment, political, subaltern,
NATURE OF 'POLITICAL': MAHASWETA DEVI'S MOTHER OF 1084
This paper discusses different definitions of political theatre and it evaluates as well as re-defines the nature of 'Political' that is used in Mahasweta Devi's Mother of 1084. Basically, the play deals with Naxalite movement that began in a small village of West Bengal during 1970s and the effects of the movement influence socio-economic and political conditions of middle class as well as capitalist society. Basically the Naxalites look after middle class society as government authorities unable to bring transformation in their conditions. So there are conflicts between Naxalite movement that wants to bring transformation and Power structure-Institutions of the nation that wants to suppress the voice of the Naxalites at various levels. Therefore, operation of working larger power structure of institutions towards middle class society becomes pivotal issue that leads to label Mahasweta Devi's Mother of 1084 'Political'.
Portrayal of Motherhood in Mahasweta Devi's Mother of 1084
THE CREATIVE LAUNCHER: An International, Open Access, Peer Reviewed, Refereed, E-Journal in English, 2017
Mahasweta Devi is a prolific writer who has used her pen for the causes of the most deprived sections of the society. She has written about the pangs and plights of tribals, women, dalits and other marginalized sections of society. Her novel, Mother of 1084, is the depiction of the miserable condition of a mother who tries to search for the causes of her son's commitment towards Naxalite movement during 1970s after his brutal killing. She comes across many layers of hidden things which a mother from upper class may not bother to know in normal situations. She explores that her son was like her who cared for others, wanted equality in the society and therefore he had sacrificed his life. She finds her life akin to the thoughts of her son as she herself is excluded in her own family. She has to bear the oppression of exclusion in her own house. These things have made her stronger and able to understand those causes for which her son has sacrificed his life. Unsympathetic behavior of the husband and some of the children, double standard of morality and civil laws, the gap between the proletariats and the bourgeois, Naxalite movement and its aftermath, indiscriminate brutal killings of Naxalites, lust for materialistic life and hollow prestige among the upper class society are well documented by Mahasweta Devi in her most popular work, Mother of 1084.
Rebels and Biopolitics: Mahasweta Devi's Mother of 1084
Biopolitics—the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed and regulated under regimes of authority—is ordinary currency in society, and ruling political systems exercise surveillance, incarceration and killings to a great extent in this regard. Michel Foucault's work on the regulation of human beings through the production of power serves as an initial medium of investigation into biopolitics. Yet, Giorgio Agamben probes the covert and overt presence of biopolitical violence in society, particularly through his concepts of state of exception and bare life. The Indian playwright Mahasweta Devi's Anglophone play-text Mother of 1084 (1973) enables scholars to participate in a critical forum on biopolitical praxis, because of its pervasive and explicit representation of state violence and rebels. Nonetheless, the play-text is often renowned for its reference to feminist ideology and mother-son relationship. Existing scholarship has overlooked the manifestation of torture and dead bodies on-stage represented in it. The play is also on the periphery of the mainstream literary criticism. By engaging with a textual portrayal of the play through Foucauldian and Agambenian critical lenses, this article interrogates the ways in which biopolitics coerces populations within the contemporary socio-political milieu. The analysis implies a potential to understand the biopolitical logic more meaningfully, and to be resistant to its stratagems of coercion. It adds to the existing body of literature on biopolitics by creating a specific account of life-politics as characterised in postcolonial theatre, provides a supplemental standpoint to debates on biopolitical subjugation and specifically contributes to current discussions of the play.
GMJHS- JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2016
In Indian English Literature, there are some women writers who have reflected the wounded psyche, suppressed voice and tragic account of the lower or lower middle class people. Mahasweta Devi is one of the most famous writers among them and she has been a champion for the socio- political and economic cause and the advancement of the tribal, down trodden and the underprivileged people. The present paper aims to show an account of a suppressed or neglected mother who has recently lost her son. The trauma of the tragic death of her son always haunts her and it makes her an aggrieved mother. Though Devi employs the Naxalite movement as a background of her drama Mother of 1084, she emphasizes on the tragic plight of a bereaved mother who is mourning for the death of her son. As much as information she gets about her son, she becomes isolated and alienated from the so called bhadralok (gentleman) society. The present paper also explores how she belongs to a male dominated society which considers women as an object of sex, neglected and subjugated being and how she revolts against the traditional established system and trembles the base of that rotten society. KEYWORDS: Naxalite Movement, Suppression, Bereaved Mother.
Psychological Crisis of Mother in Mahesweta Devi's Mother of 1084
Mahasweta Devi is one of the leading writers of our times. Translated into many languages, her works have won her international acclaim and prestige. Her voluminous writings, cemented by her activism, has made her the celebrated writer of social commitment. Committed to the cause of tribals, peasants, landless labourers, bonded slaves and oppressed women, Mahasweta Devi has wielded her pen to raise the voice of these downtrodden people. The mother of 1084 is one of the most read novels of Mahasweta Devi. Set in the background of the Naxalite Movement of Bengal in the seventies, this novel focuses on the emotional and psychological crisis of a mother whose son is killed in this movement. Sujata, the mother of Brati, becomes the voice of all women who have to bear the emotional setback due to this and other such movements. Sujata becomes a living dead body after her son's death. Analysing the cause of this movement and the death of her son, she comes face to face with her own real self which hitherto has been suppressed by her callous husband. In this paper my endeavour will be to trace Sujata's journey through the emotional vacuum created Brati's death. Mahasweta Devi is one of the foremost literary personalities, a prolific and best-selling author of Bengali fiction. She is basically a social activist, who further has added another feather to her field through her writing. She has been working with the tribals and the marginalized communities so that their real stories could reach the authorities at the helm of affairs. Devi started her career as a socio-political journalist whose articles have appeared regularly in the Economic and Political Weekly, Frontier and other journals. Mahasweta Devi has made a significant contribution in the field of literary and cultural studies in our country. Her research into oral history of the cultures and memories of tribal communities is a first of its kind. Her powerful and horrifying tales of exploitation and struggle
Mahashweta Devi’s Mother of 1084: Disrupting the Normative Hegemonic Institution of the Family
Research Journey, 2019
This is the idea of the paper. It incorporates a slightly Marxist feminist perspective that basically works on the premise that we are all agents in the production cycle like cogs in a wheel and we have different roles to play to keep the production cycle going and all institutions and arrangements in society that we see are determined by economics. Men and women through their different roles in the cycle of production create a society which in turn shapes them. Marriage is a contract which has economic reasons and the family acquires the status of a hegemonic institution because it is instrumental in facilitating production and in furthering the interest and the material wellbeing of the state. The man works for the state, the woman works for the man and she also reproduces so in other words she brings in more workers or caretakers which will contribute to this cycle of production. I have taken up Mahashweta Devi’s MO1084 and I am looking at how she is trying to disrupt the family as a hegemonic institution and critiquing its functioning just as a mere tool of the state which undermines individual growth and well-being of a person. So we have grieving mother Sujata who has lost her son to the Naxalite movement and she is the only one who is mourning his death. But not publicly. Because they belong to a particular social class, the Bengali bhadralok or the bourgeoisie their actions and reactions and even the dynamics within the family are determined and governed by their class consciousness. So the Brati the dead Naxalite son who has brought bad name to the family is reduced to a number 1084 and disowned in many ways by the family. They don’t discuss him, they obliterate him from their thoughts and they go on as if nothing has happened. Because that’s whats best for the family and the family name and the family business. Except Sujata. She is torn between conforming to middle class standards and mourning over her dead son. And if she is seen to be grieving she allows herself to be labelled as strange, not dutiful enough to her husband and his reputation. So devi gives us a glimpse of this family where no true bonds exist either between the couples, all the married couples share a very perfunctory arbitrary relationship. They are just married to each other because it is socially correct to remain married. There is no bond between the children and the mother because they are in different camps playing the game of capitalist patriarchy. SO through this model of a dysfunctional family devi exposes the decay and the damage which submission to the state machinery can cause to a family and how the family in turn because of its puppetlike existence can be detrimental to the well-being of the individual, how it can lead to estrangement and frigidity and ostracism and marginalisation and finally death. And the paper of course attempts a very close reading of the text to substantiate and consolidate this argument.
International Review of Literary Studies, 2020
'Draupadi' is a short story written by Mahasweta Devi. Draupadi is a Santhali girl who was protesting against social and gender based oppression and violence with courage and showcasing the patriarchal society's brutality. Though this story had been translated into English by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak but here we will try to understand the story in both Bengali and English and undoubtedly look at the class and caste based discrimination, oppression, exploitation and torture that 'Draupadi' or 'Dopdi' was faced from social, sexual, regional point of view. This theoretical study focuses on how social and gender based inequality was faced by a backward tribal lady and correlating it with gender discrimination in Mahabharata period. The political point of view and the significance of the name 'Draupadi' are also discussed on the perspective of Mahasweta Devi's 'Draupadi'.
Mahashwetadevi- SHYAONTI TALWAR Existential Underpiinings in Mahashweta Devi's Mother of 1084(1)
Yking , 2021
This paper discusses the predominant presence of existential elements in Devi’s play Mother of 1084, like ontological insecurity, awareness of the being, anxiety of erasure through death, incertitude of life, futility of existence, freedom of choice and authentic versus inauthentic existence and the use of certain literary devices to foreground these existential themes. The play is set in the 1970s and underscores the state-sponsored police atrocities through the predicament of a mother who has lost her son. The play is about an upper-middle class, urban, educated, working woman Sujata Chatterjee who son Brati is brutally killed by the state in its efforts to quell the Naxalite movement which believed in adopting extremist approaches to eradicate class divides deeply entrenched in feudal Bengal.
Empowering The Subaltern: A Reading Of Mahasweta Devi'S After Kurukshetra
2016
Mahasweta Devi's writings are mostly premised on the project of lending space and voice to the unacknowledged presences of the society. Her task is that of retrieving the silences from the grand narratives of history. After Kurukshetra, comprising three stories that imaginatively recreate certain segments of the epic- too, is no exception. In these stories she has attempted a revisionist reading of the Mahabharata, by bringing to the fore the perspectives of a marginalized section of the society. Her short stories attempt a counter historical depiction of the epic through the eyes of women who are also underclassed, thereby debunking the patriarchal brahminic discourse of the Mahabharata. In these stories Devi has not only granted them space but has also accorded them a superior status. The present paper would like to explore the strategies Devi has employed not only to articulate the silenced peripheries but also to give these dispossessed women an edge over their social superi...