KUNTHAVAI NAACCHIYAAR GOVERNMENT ARTS COLLEGE ORWOMEN(AUT),

THANJAVUR-613007.
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

III BA ENGLISH, V SEMESTER 2020-2021

WOMEN’S WRITING IN ENGLISH

CODE :18K5E12

UNIT-I POETRY-DETAILED

1.Margaret Atwood-This is a Photograph of Me

2.Emily Dickinson-After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes

3.Audre Lorde- A Woman Speaks

POETRY(NON-DETAILED)

4.Mamta Kalia-Positive Thinking

5.Maya Angelou- Caged Bird

THIS IS A PHOTOGRAPH OF ME
- MARGARET ATWOOD

It was taken some time ago.

At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan

it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
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what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,

and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken

the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center

of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where

precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,

eventually
you will be able to see me.)

Summary:

The speaker of the poem begins to describe an old photograph from many
years ago. The speaker further illustrates the photograph as “smeared” or
“smudged” and “ blurry”. Then she instructs the reader through a more detailed
analysis of the photograph first pointing out a tree that creeps into the frame from
one of its left corners.

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 Then the speaker identifies “a small frame house” that sits on a slope as
well as “a lake” and “some low hills”. As such she has been describing a natural
scenic landscape the speaker admits in a parenthetical statement that the
photograph was taken the day after she has drowned in the lake. The speaker
makes the reader to look more closely and try to identify the corpse submerged
within the lake. At last the speaker said to the audience that they have been gazing
the photo for a while so that they can identify the speaker.
Introduction to the poet

Margaret Eleanor Atwood born in November 18,1939. She is a Canadian

poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist and inventor.
She has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, 9
collections of short fiction, 8 children's book and 2 graphic novels. Atwood has won
numerous Awards and honors for her writings like Booker price (twice)
Arthur C Clarke award, Governor General award, Franz Kafka price, National Book
Critics and PEN centre USA's Lifetime Achievement Award. She wrote different
genres like historical fiction, speculative fiction science fiction, dystopian fiction.
Her important and notable works are ‘Surfacing’, ‘The Handmaid's Tale’, ‘Cat's
Eye’, ‘ Alias Grace’, ‘The Blind Assassin’ and ‘Oryx and Crake’. Her important
writings are focused on the themes like theorizing Canada, Canadian identity,victim
position in Canadian literature, Self-consciousness and self-actualization.
Introduction to the poem

Woman's writing may refer to the general study of women writers or women
literature as a genre in general or in particular language. It becomes a chain of
inspiration among writers, readers, and everyone else within the lives. When
women share their voice, powerful things can happen. Atwood is a well known
feminist writer who often writes about the oppression of women in society. This
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poem belongs to Atwood’s second collection of poems, “The Circle Game” (1939)
In this poem “This is the Photograph of me’’ Atwood utilizes several aspects of
nature observed in a photograph to symbolize the dominance of men over women
in our oppressive Society.

Essay on “This is a Photograph of me”

In the beginning of the poem the speaker who narrates each and every
minute details of a very old photograph. The image looks like smeared smudged
and blurry. The speaker tries to impress the reader's attention to various details
within its beautiful landscape. The speaker uncovers that once understanding of the
fact or truth is always concerned with subjectivity. The initial scan of the
photograph which reflects that this can be used to illustrate the past events.
The speaker continues to point out one corner of the photograph, from
which a tree grows and this shows her subtle hints that once understanding of the
photograph. The speaker uses the soft language to portray the scene such as “gentle
slope”, “small frame house” and “low hills”. Due to that the scene looks so calm
and quiet.
Suddenly this attitude of description disappears. Because it is revealed
that the photograph was taken on the day after the speaker died. The speaker
persuades the reader to observe more closely and try to identify the corpse
submerged in the lake. This shows that the speaker’s experience has been hidden in
the lake like her body. The speaker also calls the reflection of sunlight on lake
“a distortion”.
It suggests that the photograph misrepresents the scene the word
“distortion” represents the speaker unsure of “how large or how small I am”. The
parenthesis in the poem reveals that this information could easily be unnoticed. It
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implies that the speakers corpse is seen as secondary or insignificant. At the outset
the speaker’s perspective is entirely neglected.
This poem brings out Atwood’s major themes in her poetry collection
“The Circle Game”. It explains and immortalizes female perspective under the
male dominated societies. Thus “This is a photograph voices out the experiences of
those who feel shut out of their own histories. This poem will bring out such truths.

Short question
1. What is the central theme of the poem “This is the photograph of me”?

2. How does the speaker describe the photograph?

3. Is the speaker alive?

4. Mention any two works of Atwood.

5. What is the implication of last line of the poem “This is the photograph of me”?

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 AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELINGS COMES

-EMILY DICKINSON

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –

A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

Summary

“After Great Pain, a Formal Feelings Comes” has written by Emily

Dickinson who illustrates the emotional condition one exists in after a great loss.
Formal feeling means an absence of feeling. The speaker describes the various part
of the body to show how the loss of someone makes her body so painful. The feet
are mechanical and wooden, it is just move on autopilot. She lives like a stone,

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cold and without any movement. Then she is describing the formal feelings of
death

Introduction to the Poet

American literature is literature written in the United States of America and

proceeding colonies. The present-day United States were heavily influenced by
English literature. Emily Dickinson was an American poet. She was born in
December 10, 1830 at Amherst, Massachutts into a prominent family. Her poetry
was heavily influenced by the metaphysical poets of 17th century England. She
was extremely prolific as a poet and she was not publicly recognized during her
lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and
the last in1955. She died in Amherst in 1886. After her death her family identified
40 hand bound volumes of nearly 1800 poems or “fascicles”. She came under the
Romantic Movement, but Emily Dickinson live a life different from other writers
of romantic period. She lived largely in seclusion. She was a woman working at a
time when men dominated the literary scene. Her poems are sharp-edged and
emotionally intense. Her poems were unique to her era and they contained short
lines typically lack. Titles often used slant rhyme as well as unconventional
capitalization and punctuation

Introduction to the poem

Emily Dickinson’s poems deal with the themes of death and immortality.
Through her poem she explored aesthetics, society, nature and spirituality.
Dickinson was troubled “from a deepening menace of death” especially the death
of those who were close to her. This poem concentrates on mental anguish, grief
and sorrow it explores internal pain-naming actual anatomical parts such as the

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nerves, feet and the heart. This poem is focusing on pain, sorrow, grief, terror and
death.

Essay on “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”.

This poem “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” contains three
stanzas that are separated into sets of four, five and then four again. The stanzas do
not follow a single rhyme scheme, but have patterns of their own. Caesura is an
interesting technique that Dickinson used in this poem. It can be seen when one
line is divided in half, usually with the same number of syllables on either side.

The speaker of the poem begins by saying that “a formal feeling” happens
after one get through a great paint. The reader can understand that the speaker is
going to focusing on the aftermath of tragedy. The word “formal feeling” is the
most distinct part of the line. It evinces the question in the reader’s mind that what
kind of feelings are called formal?. Through a simile “one’s nerve sits ceremonious
like tombs” illustrates, the nerves are motionless and cold like a graveyard. The
speaker has mentioned “He” actually this he is referred to God the Almighty. The
God has created pain in her nerves and heart the feeling of being frozen or stiff
continues in the second stanza. “The feet” or said to “go around” mechanically.
They move without much conscious. It's like autopilot. The feet move in a wooden
way. They also travel on the ground or in the air. Then she has mentioned to a
stone-quartz and the feeling of contentment, the speaker might have been thinking
about steady, emotionless state and being content there, “like a stone”. The speaker
would be numb to the world at large.

In the concluding stanza, the particular time after mourning is called “the
hour of Lead”. Lead is a cold, heavy metal fitting perfectly with the rest of the
imagery. The hours are heavy on one's mind and body. The time actually

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referenced with the word ‘hour’. It might not be “outlived”. She is comparing
feeling of loss with word “stupor”, means a state of reduced consciousness or
sensibility. It can make one in, to death. There is the cold, the numbness, and then
death. Emily Dickinson describes the emotion state one exist in after suffering an
important loss.

Short Questions.

1. What is called “formal feeling” according to Emily Dickinson?

2. What is the poetic technique used by Emily Dickinson in her poems?

3. Whom does the pronoun ‘He’ refer to?

4. What is the central theme of this poem?

5. What is the meaning of the word ‘stupor’?

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 A WOMAN SPEAKS

-BY AUDRE LORDE

Moon marked and touched by sun

my magic is unwritten

but when the sea turns back

it will leave my shape behind.

I seek no favor

untouched by blood

unrelenting as the curse of love

permanent as my errors

or my pride

I do not mix

love with pity

nor hate with scorn

and if you would know me

look into the entrails of Uranus

where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell

within my birth nor my divinities

who am ageless and half-grown

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and still seeking

my sisters

witches in Dahomey

wear me inside their coiled cloths

as our mother did

mourning.

I have been woman

for a long time

beware my smile

I am treacherous with old magic

and the noon's new fury

with all your wide futures

promised

I am

woman

and not white

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Summary

‘A Woman Speaks’ is a poem for the invisible and a conversation between

women of different cultures and nationalities. It describes the lived experience of
black women in United States and across the Diaspora .At the same time this
poem discuss about what could also be done within the black feminist movement
to help the lives of women of color. The specialty of this poem is that Audre Lorde
never makes any accusations, but declaration of Lorde’s own truth. This poem is
not meant to blame but to start a perspective of the world to others who may not
have understood a problem of a black woman.

Introduction to the poet

Audre Lorde born in February 18, 1934 at New York to Caribbean

immigrant parents. She is an American writer, feminist, womanist, liberarian and
civil right activists. She was a self-described “black lesbian, mother, poet”. She
dedicated both her life and creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices
of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism and homophobia. As a child Lorde
struggled with communication and came to appreciate the power of poetry as a
form of expression. She describes herself as thinking in poetry. She also
memorized a great deal of poetry and use to communicate to the extent that, “if
asked how she was feeling, Audre would reply by reciting a poem. Her writings
are based on the theory of “difference”, the idea that binary opposition between
men and women is overly simplistic.

Audre Lorde identified issues of race, class, age and ageism, sex and
sexuality ,later in her life chronic illness and disability and she lived with cancer.
She wrote of all of these factors are fundamental to her experience of being
woman.

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Introduction to the poem

‘A Woman Speaks’ is a both confessional and identity poem. In this poem

see explains how patriarchal society has misnamed it and used it against women
causing women to fear it. She is not only addressing her internal battle and self
suffering but also discussing that societal inequalities, the African American
women were suffering in the US. This poem is an anthem for African American
women and uses vivid imaginary and a call to the reader and enact fight against the
under-representation of African American woman

Essay on “A Woman Speaks”

The poem “A Woman Speaks” from the collected works of Audre Lorde
has written in three stanzas. The farm and the tone in the beginning of the poem
evince a calm atmosphere. But the poem progresses, it explores towards the true
conflict within. She concentrates on the inconsistencies in how black women are
perceived and their battle to define their identity outside of society’s norms. The
beginning of the poem illustrates the attention of the readers to how the black
women are viewed as both unearthly , Goddess -like being described in jazz, the
black American art form and many other art forms. Many of the art forms praise
the beauty and features of African American women, but at the same time their
history is mostly forgotten by the people.

The speaker expresses a sense of loss of identity and being unknown by

others in the second stanza. She draws attention to the strange position of women
of color as so strong and also underestimated. She has given the reference of
witches in the Dahomey. Black women have been called by the whites as witches
are meant to portray how their strength is seen as evil and make them an outsider.
Audre has positioned herself in the world of Dahomey and then return again to her

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mother and then to her own experience. This represents Audre feels the oneness
with her elders and ancestors.

In the final stanza Audre has warned the feminist movement and patriarchal
society. They have failed to uplifting of black women. She says “beware my
smile/ I am treacherous with old magic”. It is a true warning and also the
declaration of incomprehensible power and she tries to dismantle the idea of black
women as dangerous. The last line of the poem. “I am /woman/ and not white”
represents the bold attitude of the poet and still she wants to struggle against the
right for black women.

Short Questions

1. Why does Audre Lorde write this poem” A Woman Speaks”?

2. Write the reference of ‘Dahomey’

3. What is the problem between black and white people?

4. Is a woman speaks a confessional poem?

5. How was the black woman perceived by the society?

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 POSITIVE THINKING

-MAMTA KALIA

Let us forget your death and mine.

We have so much to remember:

A comfortable home

Your air-conditioned office

Our quarter-dozen children

Your bank balance

The Race Course nearby

Your Yoga exercises

My fortnightly manicure

And all those social engagements.

Who cares for primal disappointments?

Introduction
Mamta Kalia was born in 1940 in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh. She got
M.A. English literature from Delhi University, 1963. She writes poetry in English
and Hindi. Her books in English are “Tribute to Papa and Other Poems” (1970)
and “Poems’78”(1978). In Hindi, She has published five novels to her credit, seven
short story collections, two one act play collections, four novelettes for children
and she has edited three works.
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 She is also one of the advisory Committee Member on the Sahitya
Academy board New Delhi from 1988-91. She is a regular broadcaster for
Akashavani and Doordarshan.

Bruce King has rightly remarked that the present contemporary manner
appears to have been initiated by Mamta Kalia (Bruce King 155) . He goes on to
add that the directness of expression and natural idiomatic colloquial vigor is more
often found in verse of the Das, Kalia ,De Souza and Silgardo than in the male
Indian English poets. He should have mentioned that a line of wit is existed in the
Indian poetry in English by women writers. Mamta Kalia is a bilingual writer who
writes both in English and in Hindi. She is a confessional poet like Sylvia Plath.
And Kamala Das.

Essay on Positive Thinking

Woman in Indian Society have played different roles as a daughter,

wife, daughter-in-law and mother. Mamta Kalia’s poetic sensibility is almost
unique subjective in its response to experience of woman as a wife or beloved. She
has exposed the image of women in Indian context. Many of her poems seem to
consider ‘the women's view of the world and her position within it’(Ember 71).
It is through the eyes of disappointed woman that she explores her
relationship with the outer world. Many of the poems in the first volume focus on
Romantic passion of early love. Some of her poems describe the problem of the
institution of marriage.
In her short poem, Positive Thinking an attempt is made to forget the
reality of death with the help of modern amenities and luxuries. The poem exhibits
to externalize the loneliness and agony of the social and primal disappointments.

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Marital harmony is further developed in this poem. The opening line of the poem
“Let us forget your death and mine” can be the most accurate comment on
marriage.

In a very casual manner the speaker further saying that “we have so
much to remember”. Then she lists out the outcome of their union of marriage: A
comfortable home, air-conditioned office, our quarter-dozen children, bank
balance, race course, yoga exercise, etc., According to the speaker, marriage has
provided her with material comforts and social status. In return she has to given up
her own individual personality.
At last, the poet, Mamta Kalia asks a rhetorical question, who cares for
primal disappointment? . The fact is that no one in the society is bothered about the
love-life of an individual in the context of marriage. The materialistic comforts
have been decided by the success of marriage.
The poem throws light on the failure of modern life, with its sick and
divided aims. The shield against death is “Positive thinking”. One should not
worry about primal disappointments.

Short Questions:

1. When and where Mamta Kalia was born?

2. What is the position of women in Indian Society?

3. Why was the institution of marriage materialized?

4. What are called Primal disappointments?

5. Which is to be a shield against death?

17
 CAGED BIRD

- Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard

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on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

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SUMMARY

‘Caged Bird’ refers to a bird with clipped wings. A bird which cannot fly.
In spite of its physical inability and its despair, the caged bird continues to be full
of life and energy, sing songs of freedom. This poem “Caged Bird” deals with
themes of freedom and oppression especially African American were oppressed in
the United States. The poem draws the comparison between the free bird and caged
bird to show what kind of life the caged bird is meant to live. Though the caged
bird is trapped, the poem shares a message of resilience, as the bird has not yet
give up.

INTRODUCTION TO THE POET

Maya Angelou was an American poet, memorist and civil right activist. She
was born in 4th April 1928 at Saint Louis Missourie,US. She published 7 auto
biographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry and also credited with a
list of plays, movies and television shows spanning over 50 years. African
American writer and poet Maya Angelou was honoured by universities, literary
organization, government agencies and special interest groups. Her honour include
a pulitzer prize nomination for her book of poetry “Just give me a Cool Drink of
Water”. In 2000 she was awarded the National medal of arts by President Bill
Clinton. Presidential medal of freedom (2010) the highest civilian honour in the
US by President Barack Obama. She was awarded more than 50 honourary
degrees. More than 30 healthcare and medical facilities named after her. Her early
life is the focus of her first autobiographical work,‘ I Know why the Caged Bird
Sings’(1969),which gained critical acclaim and a National Book award
nomination. Her autobiography explores the themes of economic, racial and sexual
oppression.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM

Caged bird was published in Maya Angelou’s 1983 poetry collection- “Shaker,
Why don't you Sing”. The poem describes the opposing experience between two
birds: one bird is able to live in nature as it pleases, while the different caged bird
suffers in captivity. Due to its profound suffering the caged bird sings, both to cope
up with its circumstances and to express its longing for freedom.

ESSAY ON ‘CAGED BIRD’

The opening stanza brings out the lyrical imagery the utmost happiness of a
free bird has been singing for freedom. Its being carried away by the wind. There is
a stream. The colours of the sky are intense. The wind is compared with the forces
of a river sweeping downstream. At the end of the first stanza comes with the
concept that such a freedom to fly gives the bird the confidence to dare “to claim
the sky”. The first stanza and the final stanza when the uncaged bird “names the
sky his own”. Here the speaker is making a comprehensible connection between
freedom and power.

Then the comparison of the freedom of an uncaged bird with the

imprisonment of a caged bird. The bird in the cage ‘stalks’ his bars of rage. Inside
that cage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied. The third stanza openly asserts
that the bird lives in fear as it is described as singing with a fearful voice. The bird
is terrified because it has been caged and did not know the reason and can
understand the desire of freedom. Behind the bars of the closed and locked cage,
the owner of the bird has clipped its wings and tied its feet to provide another layer
of protection against its escape from the cage. The singing of the caged bird is

21
illustrated. It is a sound infused with fear. It is a song which can be heard across
long distance. It is a song about yearning to be free.

Then the poem comes back to the bird that is free. This bird longing not of
freedom, but looks at the arrival of another strong wind and thinks about the big fat
juicy worms to be eaten in the morning. The sky which he calls his own. The
stanza thus becomes metaphorical illustration depicting the one who is affluent
enough to enjoy its freedom. The caged bird is in fear and its voice is a “grave of
dreams” and his song is a “nightmare scream”. The poem ends with a repetition of
the imagery of clipped wings, tied feet and singing of a caged bird .

The concept of the poem speaks to the theme of persistent and prevalent
racism in American society. Angelou feeds off the power of the poetic attack
against racism. The central themes of this poem are freedom and confinement.
Artistic expression as resistance and civil rights. Caged bird is concerned with both
imprisonment and innate urge for freedom.

SHORT QUESTIONS

1.What is the implication of the title ‘Caged Bird’?

2. How does the caged bird sing?

3.Whom does caged bird refer to?

4.What is the desire of caged bird?

5.What are the central idea of the poem ‘Caged Bird’ ?

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UNIT-II PROSE

1.Virginia Woolf –“The Androgynous Vision” from “A Room of One’s Own”

2.Sarojini Naidu-The Soul of India

3.Nadine Gordimer- The Essential Gesture: Writers and Responsibility

A ROOM OF ONE’S ONE

-VIRGINIA WOOLF

Introduction of “A Room of One's Own”

“A Room of One's Own” is the one of the seminal text of feminism in
20th century. Virginia Woolf’s Essay was the first literary history of women
writers. At first Woolf gave a version of the essay as two talks at the women's
college of Cambridge University, Newham and Girton. This essay is constructed as
a partly-fictionalized narrative of the ideas that proceed her to write this essay. She
describes that mental process in the character of an imaginary narrator. She is self
educated woman in her father's Library, entered the university in 1928 to speak to
young woman who had the opportunity to access higher education. Woolf had
written the lecture in May 1929. Then she expanded that speech into essay and that
is “A Room of One's Own”.
This essay was published in book form on October 24, 1929. Woolf
skillfully used the setting of lecture. She visits Oxbridge, the fictional University is
an amalgamation of England's prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities. The
comparison of luxurious male and mediocre female facilities of the Universities
made her to write this essay. She also introduced some of the real people character
in her essay. Woolf has applied a number of methodologies like historical and
sociological analysis, philosophy and fictional hypothesis.
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Author introduction
Virginia Woolf was born on January 26, 1882. She is the daughter of the
eminent Victorian critic and scholar, Sir Leslie Stephen. She was one of the
greatest women writers of the 20th century. Virginia started writing literary
reviews in 1905. Her relationship with the Times Literary Supplement lasted more
than thirty years. She also enthusiastically worked for a Bloomsbury Group, one of
whose members was Lytton Strachey. She wrote many essays on the art of
biography, which contains her achievements. In 1914 the First World War broke
out, Virginia had a horrible and shattering experience. She became weak and
feeble. She wrote numerous essays and novels. The important novels are The
Voyage Out, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, The Lighthouse, etc,. Her notable
essays are Common Reader, First Series, A Room Of One's Own, Three Guineas ,
The Death Of the Moth And Other Essays, A Writer’s Diary etc. ,
Virginia Woolf had physical ailment and did not maintain her health
after World War broke out. Her desire and will to do something to the society was
spoiled by the outbreak of the war. On March 28th, 1941, she wanted to end her
life in the river running near her home. She left her hat and walking stick on the
bank and committed suicide by drowning in the river.
Essay on “A Room of One's own” -chapter –VI-“The Androgynous Vision”

Woolf starts the essay by accepting that thinking of gender differences

has given her so much of pain and strain. This theme is her main focus in this
chapter. It was October morning the narrator has look out of the window and see
what London was doing in the morning of October 26th 1928. According to the
narrator, the London was wholly indifferent to literature. They have never admired
literature. Then she watches a young man and woman get into a taxi. The unity of
two people getting into a cab gives her satisfaction. She wonders that she had been
24
thinking these past two days about one sex is distinct from the other is an effort.
The unity of man and woman is evident when the two live in harmony together, a
kind of spiritual co-operation. This unity, she observes is what S.T. Coleridge, the
poet was illustrating a great mind is androgynous. It was a mind that has any
special sympathy with women and devotes itself to their interpretation. Hence the
androgynous mind is less apt to make these distinctions than single-sex mind.
S.T. Coleridge said that the androgynous mind is resonant and the porous and it
transmits emotion without impediment. He says thus “the androgynous mind is
naturally creative ,incandescent and undivided”. He did not mean that the
androgynous mind never favours women in any women.
Then Virginia Woolf as mentioned the writings of Shakespeare and
describes Shakespeare’s mind as the type of androgynous which means man-
womanly mind, though it would be difficult to illustrate what Shakespeare thought
of woman. But the fact, it is of the tokens of the fully developed mind and it did
not think specially or separately of sex. But it is very hard to find current examples
in this “stridently sex-conscious age”. She accepts the surface campaign for the
women’s vote induced men’s defensiveness over their own sex. After reading the
novel by well-respected writer, she contends, for the male writer, it is fatal to focus
only on the main manly side of their nature.
His writing is good, clear and strong, exhibits a free mind, but she later
notices that he protests “against the equality of other sex by asserting his own
superiority” and this is so harmful. At this point she has been insisting only the
androgynous mind can foster “perpetual life” in its readers mind. The narrator
complaints both sexes for bringing about this self-consciousness of gender. She
also evaluates the androgyny of various famous writers, like Keats, Sterne,
Cowper, Lamb, Shelley, Milton, Ben Jonson, Wordsworth and Tolstoy and
observes: if a writer’s mind is purely of male or female, if there is not total
25
freedom of thought, then the writing will not be fertilised.

Woolf now respond to a couple of objections of the narrator. She says that
no opinion has been expressed upon the comparative merits of the sexes even as
writers. That was done purposely. She does not believe in such a valuation is
possible or acceptable. Second, her readers may think that the narrator gives too
much importance on material things. The Mind should be able to come across
poverty and lack of privacy. She has given the reference of the top poets of the last
century. In that the three were well educated and all but Keats who were well-off.
According to her the intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry
depends upon intellectual freedom and women have always been poor since the
beginning of the time. Women not yet written great poetry. That is the reason
Virginia Woolf has laid so much stress on Money and A Room of One's Own. She
uses the idea only to promote the necessity of financial independence for
Women along with their need of privacy.

Virginia Woolf concludes this essay with a reference to Shakespeare’s

sister (Judith Shakespeare) lives in the heart of all women. If women are provided
with money and privacy in the future again Judith Shakespeare will be given
rebirth.

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Short Question:

1. Why did Virginia Woolf call the University as Oxbridge?

2. What is the message conveyed by Virginia Woolf in her essay?

3. What is androgyny?

4. Who has used the word androgyny mind in his writing?

5. How does Virginia Woolf feel, when she look at the union of man and woman?

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 The Essential Gestures: Writers and Responsibility

-Nadine Gordimer

Introduction.

Nadine Gordimer was born in 20th, November 1923 at springs,

Transvaal, Union of South Africa. She was a South African writer and political
activists. She received two prestigious awards that is the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1991 and Booker Prize in 1974. She belonged to a period of apartheid-era, South
Africa. Her writing mainly focused on morality, gender issues, and racial
discrimination in South Africa. She wrote novels and plays. Her important works
are ‘ My Son's Story’, ‘The Conservationist’, ‘Burger’s Daughter’, ‘July’s People’
etc ., The central themes of her works are exile, alienation and apartheid .She died
on 13th, July 2014 at age of 90 in Johannesburg.

Responsibility of a Writer

This is a lecture delivered by Nadine Gordimer at the University of

Michigan on 18th october 1984. The central idea of this lecture is responsibility of
a writer. According to Gordimer ‘responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of
creativity’. Because creative act is not pure, for this history has its evidence,
ideology has demanded it and society also proved it. When writers have begun to
lose their responsibility and write accordingly. They must realize that they are
answerable to the society. So they will lose the beautiful garden of Eden, that is
creativity. The writer is held responsible, he is held before he begins by the claims
of different concept of mortality ,such as –artistic, linguistic, ideological, national,
political ,religions declared upon him.

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Essential Gesture as a Social Being

Roland Barthes wrote that language is a corpus of prescription and a

habit common to all the writers of a period (Roland Barthes, Writing Degree
Zero).He also wrote that writers ‘enterprise’- his work -his ‘essential gesture as a
social being’ between these two statements Gordimer has found out the importance
of writers responsibility. Language as a transformation of thought into written
words in any language-is not only ’a’ but ‘the’ corpus common to all writers in
the contemporary period.

Nadine Gordimer has observed thus that essential gesture is individual

and with it writer quits the commune of the corpus. But with it he enters the
commonality of society ,the world of other beings who are not writers. He and his
fellow writers are at once is isolated from one another far and wide by the varying
concepts in different societies. For example Saul Bellow ,Kurt Vonnegut ,Susan
Sontag, Toni Morrison or John Berger to write on a particular theme that would
result that would result under a ban, banished due to internal exile or detained in
jail. But in countries like Soviet Union, South Africa, Iran, Vietnam, Taiwan and
certain Latin American and other countries, this is the kind of demand that
responsible for social significance of writer exacts: a double demand, the first from
the oppressed, to act as spokesperson for them, the second from the state, to take
the punishment for the act. Loyalty is an emotion ,integrity a conviction adhered
to out moral values. Therefore. She has spoken not of loyalties but integrities, in
her recognition of society's right to make demands on the writer as equal to that of
the writer’s commitment to his artistic vision, the source of conflict is what
demands are made and how they be met.

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South African Writers voice out their problems

Gordimer praised the strength of her own such country ,South Africa
,among some black writers. In African writers, she glorified the two of Africa’s
most important writers, Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. They became more
than writers in their country Nigeria and voice out the crisis of civil war .Both
were sacrificed for some years the energy of their creativity to the demands of
activism, which included, for Soyinka, imprisonment, but it is out of being more
than a writer that many black men and women in South Africa begin to write. For
these writers, there were no opposition of inner and outer demands. In spite of
these problems , they were writing, they were political activists in the concrete
sense, teaching, proselytizing , organizing. “ Africa, my beginning… Africa my
end” these lines of epic poem ( banned in South Africa) written by Ngoapele
Madingoane epitomize this synthesis of creativity and social responsibility. What
moves him, and the way it moves him or perfectly at one with his society's
demands. Without those demands he's not a poet.

Attitude of White Writers

Nadine Gordimer has discussed on the imposition of orthodoxy is a white

interpretation.The impulse came from within to discard the lantern of artistic truth
that reveals human worth through human ambiguity. The writer tries to gain his
freedom so that the writer must give up his freedom. This kind of impulse came
from within, without or both for the black South African writer it became an
imperative to attempt that salvation. It remains so, but in the 1980s many black
writers of quality have come into conflict with the demand from without
responsibility as orthodoxy and have begun to negotiate the right to their own,

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inner interpretation of essential gesture by which they are part of the black
struggle.

The white writer who has declared himself answerable to the oppressed
people is not expected by them to be ‘ more than a writer’. Since his historical
position is not seen as allowing him to be central to the black struggle. A writer is
black or white, in South Africa the essential gesture by which he enters the
brotherhood of man -white is the only definition of society that has any permanent
validity is a revolutionary gesture.

Problems faced by Black Writers

South African writers who are ‘only writers’ are sometime reproached by
those black and white, who are in practical revolutionary terms ‘more than
writers’.As for as black writers are concerned, even though the humiliation and a
deprivation of daily life under apartheid enjoin them. White writers who are only
writers are open to related reproach for stealing the lives of black as good material.

Conclusion

At last the writer is eternally in search of self-realization and self-

determination in his relation to his society. Everywhere in the world, he needs to
be left alone. At the same time to have a vital connection with others. He needs
artistic freedom and feels the two presences within- creative self -absorption and a
conscionable awareness.

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Short Questions

1. When did Nadine Gordimer deliver the lecture “The Essential Gesture: Writers
and Responsibility”?

2. What is the responsibility of a writer, according to Gordimer?

3. What is Roland Bathes comment on ‘essential gesture’?

4. Who are the African - American writers mentioned by Nadine Gordimer?

5. How does Nadine Gordimer bring out the theme of apartheid in her essay?

6. What are the problems faced by the black writers?

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