The poem describes the tragic consequences of a woman who fails to find genuine love. She is married to a selfish and cowardly husband who only uses her for his own lustful desires but does not love her. She also turns to other men seeking love but they also reject her emotional needs and only want her for sex. Frustrated by the lack of love, she isolates herself in her room, crying and losing her sanity. Her husband locks her in the room each day with only a streak of sunlight for company. As winter comes, the sunlight fades to a thin line, and one day her husband finds her cold and half-dead, now having no value to men. The poem shows how the pursuit of lust

1. THE SUNSHINECAT
-- KAMALA DAS

2. The poem, The Sunshine Cat, is
taken from the collection of poem
titled Summer in Calcutta (1965).

3. Theme
• It shows the difference between lust and love in a
very convincing manner.
• It is a personal poem having universal
implications.
• The poet has approached the tragic consequences
of the life of lust wherein there is no space for the
emotional and spiritual satisfaction.
• She has adopted the female perspective for
highlighting the predicament of a helpless and
frustrated woman in the modern male-dominated
society.

4. She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish
And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor
Used her, but was a ruthless watcher, and the band
Of cynics she turned to, clinging to their chests where
New hair sprouted like great-winged moths, burrowing her
Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget
To forget, oh, to forget, and, they said, each of
Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not
In my nature to love, but I can be kind to you.
They let her slide from pegs of sanity into
A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping,
For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears,
She said, walls to shut me in. Her husband shut her
In, every morning, locked her in a room of books
With a streak of sunshine lying near the door like
A yellow cat to keep her company, but soon
Winter came, and one day while locking her in, he
Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a
Line, a half-thin line, and in the evening when
He returned to take her out, she was a cold and
Half dead woman, now of no use at all to men.
----- Kamala Das

5. “She loved, who loved her not enough, being selfish
And a coward, the husband who neither loved nor
Used her, but was a ruthless watcher,”
In this opening passage of the poem, The Sunshine
Cat, the poet highlights the disastrous consequences
of the life of lust which often end in destruction and
death. It shows that only real love can give a person
emotional and spiritual satisfaction.

6. • The poem realistically deals with the pathos of a forlorn
woman who failed to get real love in life.
• She was sexually ill-treated and exploited by those whom she
loved and were known to her.
• They indulged in lust but denied her the emotional and
spiritual thrills of love.
• She particularly referred to one person among them whom she
really loved but got nothing in return.
• Unfortunately, the man i.e. her lustful husband overlooked her
emotional needs and limited himself to the gratification of his
lust only.
• Ironically, he was not only selfish but also a cowardly person.
• He never bothered to have emotional rapport with her.
• He neither loved her nor used her but a remained a ruthless
watcher only who kept a close watch over her relations with
other men.

7.  This passage shows the difference between lust and
love in life.
 For Kamala Das, lust is limited to the gratification of
sensual desires only.
 It is one-sided relationship in which the emotional
needs of the other partner in sexual-relationship are
sadly overlooked.
 It is a momentary relationship in which no lasting
unification is possible.
 Love, on the other hand, is a timeless spiritual
relationship. It is a confessional poem in which the
poet highlights the tragic consequences of forced
arranged loveless marriages.
 It is full of pathos in which the poet’s sufferings seem
to have no end.

8. “and the band
Of cynics she turned to, clinging to their chests where
New hair sprouted like great-winged moths, burrowing her
Face into their smells and their young lusts to forget
To forget, oh, to forget, and, they said, each of
Them, I do not love, I cannot love, it is not
In my nature to love, but I can be kind to you.”
 The female persona, in the poem, suffered physically as
well as mentally at the hands of her husband who neither
loved nor used her.
 She loved him but her love was not reciprocated. She was
suspected of having affairs with other men by her selfish
and cowardly husband.

9.  The men she approached for genuine love turned out to be
cynics, having no faith in the goodness of human nature.
 They were in no way different from her selfish and lustful
husband. The men she chose for getting genuine love were
cynical, having no trust in the basic goodness of human
nature.
 She clung to their chests overgrown with new hair like great-
winged moths and buried her face into the smells of their
skins.
 She submitted herself to their young greed to forget the
longing for real love. But they too proved selfish and cruel like
her husband, for they could offer her nothing but lust.
 She frankly admitted that it was not in her nature to love
anybody. Being frigid, she had lost all her relevance as a
woman in their eyes.
 Maximum, they could be kind and helpful to her in case of
any emergency.

10. “They let her slide from pegs of sanity into
A bed made soft with tears, and she lay there weeping,
For sleep had lost its use. I shall build walls with tears,
She said, walls to shut me in.”
• In these lines, the poet becomes totally fed up with
her marital as well extra-marital relationships in life.
• She was shocked to learn that all her lovers had
neither love nor lust but only lip sympathy for her.

11. • The female persona was totally disillusioned by her
husband as well as her other lovers. None bothered
to satisfy her emotional-cum-spiritual needs.
• After being released from their clutches, she left for
room to relax on her soft bed, and started shedding
copious tears due to the cynical and hostile attitude
of her lustful lovers.
• She feared that she would go mad in this tensed
state of mind. She had built walls of tears around
her, and enclosed herself within their boundaries.
Being self-lost and dejected, she had consciously
alienated herself from the main stream of life.

12. • Frustration in love is always disastrous.
• It disturbs a dejected lover mentally and creates
vacuum in his/her life.
• The female personal frustrations in marital and
extra-marital relationships have a disastrous
impact on her life.
• She loses all her balance of mind and
undergoes intense emotional and intellectual
sufferings. She opts for a life of isolation and
loses all interest in life.
• It is an autobiographical passage which has a
direct bearing on the life of Kamala Das.

13. “Her husband shut her
In, every morning, locked her in a room of books
With a streak of sunshine lying near the door like
A yellow cat to keep her company, but soon
Winter came, and one day while locking her in, he
Noticed that the cat of sunshine was only a
Line, a half-thin line, and in the evening when
He returned to take her out, she was a cold and
Half dead woman, now of no use at all to men.”
• In these lines, the life of female persona is all
destabilized due to her frustrations and disillusionment
in love.
• She was shocked to learn that she had no relevance as
a woman, having any dignified identity.
• She had finally realized that all her self-styled loves
were cynics having no love for her.

14. • Her husband locked her up in the morning in a room
full of books.
• A streak of sunlight penetrated into the room and it
lay there near the door. It looked like a yellow cat
meant to be her constant company.
• But soon the winter season set in. On day, while her
husband was locking her in the room, he visualized the
streak of light seemed like a cat, reduced to a very
hair-thin line.

15. • By the time he returned home in the evening to take his wife out
of confinement, he discovered that she was cold and on the verge
of death.
• She had lost her youthful appearance, freshness and fascination.
Moreover, she had lost the very urge to participate in the sexual
act due the non-stop sufferings and humiliations which she had
undergone at the hands of her cynical husband.
• Finally, she had become useless as an object of sexual
exploitation.
• Life of isolation and humiliation always ends in premature
destruction and death.
• The poet felt suffocated in the life of confinement and lost her
balance of mind.
• It compelled her to snap all her ties with the external world. She
was totally dehumanized and lost her relevance as a woman, unfit
for sexual purposes.
• All types of lustful relationships, marital or extra-marital, share a
common tragic fate.

16. Thank You….!