Implementation of Feminism

2. January 5, 2015 [LITERARY THEORY ]
Literary Theory
A Feminist approach
Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man
S u b m i t t e d To : D r. A b d u l B a s e e r
S u b m i t t e d B y : A l i R a z a
R o l l N o : 4 1
C l a s s : B S ( H o n s )
S e m e s t e r : 7 t h
English Linguistics & Literature
Government College University
Faisalabad
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3. January 5, 2015 [LITERARY THEORY ]
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Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man: A Feminist approach
Abstract:
Bapsi Sidhwa remains a potent voice among the modern feminist writers.
She is the only Parsi woman writer to write on the theme of Partition. Literature is
a powerful tool in the hands of a creative writer to modulate and change the
Societal framework and Bapsi Sidhwa through her extremely absorbing and most
important Work, Ice-Candy-Man, seeks to contribute to the progress of change that
has already started all Over the world, involving reconsideration of women’s rights
and status and a radical Restructuring of social thought. IN Ice-Candy-Man,
Sidhwa wishes a world free from Dominance and hierarchy, a world which is
based on the principles of justice and equality and is truly human. In this novel
Sidhwa represents a series of female characters who have survived in a chaotic
time of 1947 in India, which can be registered as a period of worst religious riots in
the history of humankind.
Key Words:
Woman’s creativity, partition, justice and equality, suppression.
Introduction:
First of all we will discuss what is feminism? Feminism is a collection of
movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal
political, economic, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish
equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist advocates
or supports the rights and equality of women. If we talk about Bapsi Sidhwa, she is
entirely feminist .she stands for the rights of women and especially those women
who are unable to tackle the society and are deeply caught in the snare of male
idealism society .women are helpless and cannot dare to challenge men's vices but
Sidhwa has totally abolished this very concept and paved a new way for the
women .This theory aims to comprehend the nature of inequality and focuses on
gender politics, power relations and sexuality. Themes explored in feminism
include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification, oppression and patriarchies.
Simon de Beauvoir in her magnum opus work entitled as The Second Sex, depicts
magnificently how the woman is actually on the margin in the patriarchal society:
“Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she
behaves as a human as a human being, she is said to imitate male.” Bapsi
Sidhwa is depicting the exploitation of women in patriarchal society as,
“Women the world over, through the ages, asked to be murdered, raped,
exploited, enslaved, to get importunately impregnated, beaten up, bullied and
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disinherited. It was an immutable Law of nature.” (Page, 226).
Ice-Candy-Man is a significant testament of a true picture of the society
through the different male and female characters .she has just presented the reality
that how a magnetic female character connected the male with females and caused
a great destruction among the fellows jsut because of the female character's sexual
figure Sidhwa has injected herself in Lenny, a girl chaild the most significant
female character in the novel As a girl – child she addresses the issues of children’s
forced marriage to old and morally degenerate men and the gender bias to which
girl children are subjected even by their own families. Bapsi Sidhwa remains a
potent voice among the modern feminist writers. She is the only Parsee woman to
write on the theme of partition. Being a Parsee, Sidhwa through her novels focuses
attention on the rapidly changing scenario in her Parsee polity and culture. sidhwa's
ice candy man is the most important novel based on the partition of India in
1947.she describes the theme of marriage and problems of women’s regarding
different aspects of their lives. The Sub-Continent was turned into a diabolical
region in August 1947, when British announced the division into India and
Pakistan. This resulted in massive and violent migration of the people across the
border. This mass scale of migration entailed crimes of unprecedented Violence,
murders, rapes, bestiality and so on. In Partition literature, the paradigm of ‘woman
as victim’ has been used as an important device in the depiction of violence. The
novel foregrounds the women’s consciousness as they are affected by political
battles. It also highlights their individual characteristics and experiences. Sidhwa
has recreated a universe where women appear as biological beings. Each women
character represents the way of life.Lenny ,her mother, her god-In the patriarchal
society, masculinity is associated with superiority, whereas; femininity is linked
with inferiority, while masculinity implies power, strength, self-assertion and
domination, femininity symbolizes weakness, passivity, docility, obedience and
self-negation. Ice-Candy-Man is implicitly suggestive of an unbridgeable
emotional rift between the sexes. The violent molesting of women and children
under the excuse of communal revenge basically highlights the gender divide,
which is more absolute and hostile than racial fundamentalism. Women, once they
fall prey to men’s violence like Lenny’s two Ayah’s, cannot hope for their
restitution to their own families. The following conversation between Lenny and
her godmother is pathetic one in the whole novel:
“What a fallen woman?” I ask godmother…
“Hamida (the second Ayah) was kidnapped by the Sikhs”,
Says godmother seriously… When that happens sometimes,
The husband – or his family won’t take her back.”
“Why? It isn’t her fault she was kidnapped.”
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“Some folk feel that way—they can’t stand their woman
being touched by other men.” (Page, 215).
The incidents of Hindu and Muslim women being raped during the 1947 riots
petrify her. She watches men turning into beasts leaving no room for moral and
human values. Women including Ayah were becoming prey of men. Lenny was
shocked to see the human mind which was built of noble materials getting so easily
corrupted. Men were declaring superiority over each other by sexually assaulting
women. Women had nothing in their favor. Envy, jealousy, malice, rage for
personal power and importance in men were leading to violence and injury. Here I
am reminded Shashi.
Deshpande’s famous lines:
Rape is for me the grossest violation of trust between two people. Whether it
is someone in the family or your husband or any other man who commits a rape, it
destroys the trust between men and women. It is also the greatest violence because
it is not only the woman’s body but is her mind and feeling of her right to have a
control on her body which is gone. Sidhwa has highlighted the females rapes after
the riots and she also depicted the violence on women from men .They are always
victimized by the males. Sidhwa has given feminist touch to her character that
moves forward despite many hurdles. By observing the life of many women she
understands the limitations associated with women lives in patriarchal society.
Which brings us to the point that women novelists in the sub-continent have often
shied away from express political themes and have been more comfortable by
highlighting the problems faced by women in a patriarchal society, within or
outside a feminist framework. Sidhwa states that women are always marginalized
and she always protest against it. Lenny’s mother is another significant female
character who conforms to the traditional image of a Fidel, faithful and serving
wife who seems to be capable only of humoring things out of her husband.
Displacement is a natural condition of women, given the social fabric, the
centrality of marriage and the relocation in space and culture that accompanies it.
Females don’t have to kill baby boys. Just not nurture them. Females are forced to
‘birth’ baby boys, but beyond that, a female’s physical actions are her own. Males
will die without the constant infusion of female energy that they get from our
wombs & from our lives. They are perfectly welcome to take the male infants from
the hands of the midwife, & what they do with it is from that point is their
decision. Females need not be emotionally & intellectually invested in a male
future. ‘MARY SYRETT’’ Hence, the diaspora condition, the processes of
assimilation, the coming to terms with the condition of the being the ‘other’ and
the entire package of transforming oneself into the ‘non-other’ in an alien space
becomes a leit motif in what Amitav Ghosh, again, has identified as the central
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paradox that informs the twin concepts of “going” and “coming” in “Shadow
Lines”.
Conclusion:
In this novel Sidhwa projects through Lenny’s mother that women should
have a purpose in life besides domesticity which should be developed by them to
the best of their abilities. Hence the novel ends on a positive note. Women strive to
come out of their plight and finally move forward from their degraded and
tormented state to start their lives a fresh.
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