Foreboding of Females

Preface

Kamala Das and Preeti Shenoy are prominent Indian-English women writers. They have written in different eras of time. Kamala Das had faced the Pre-Independence era, torments of Freedom movement and Post- Independence scenarios with matrilineal lineage. Shenoy on the other hand; writes in the current times of twenty first century witnessing ever- changing global economic and high-tech era of blooming technology. Although both of them have divergent thinking with versatile personalities trying to imbibe as much experiences as they could to understand their position, self and communication related with women in their surroundings. Regional unity is prominent in their works as both these authors describe their longing for ‘God’s own Country in India i.e. Kerala’. This book analyses their works on ‘personal confessional grounds’ thoroughly highlighting the autobiographical elements present in their works. Women are cracking their hard nutshells of silence with revolting voices against all social stigmas which include fighting for their right to equality. They also touch upon the ‘sisterhood’ through their self- identity. The fact remains that a writer describes herself through her sensibility organised out of social and political situations affecting her as she has to live and manage with the surrounding social milieu.

After analysing the genesis of Autobiography from ‘Bildungsroman, Diary and Memoir’, it was found that memory pinches remembrance to muteness as sucked feelings give way to repression. We have attempted to focus on their confessional themes so as to elucidate and highlight their feminine sensibility at work like that of Sylvia Plath. Their texts reveal a critical awareness of women’s subordinate position and their gender as a problematic category. This book will imbibe the autobiographical or confessional elements of these writers as autobiographies are those pieces of literature which are profoundly submerged in the ‘filtered’ hearts. Being confessional writers, they lay their life out in open for scrutiny. Puppet like view of women even today is a measure to safeguard their needs, desires and the prejudices of the society. Parenting and pressures of different age and time find the delineation in women’s writing. ‘Self reliance’ is still a major issue for them although the technology has improved but crime against women and their security issues are burgeoning leaps and bounds. Everyone is trying to use them as their personal robots and they have to adjust or even like artificial intelligence, their battery will be never charged since it is the responsibility of the ‘device’. Grounds of critical analysis never end and you could easily find live examples everyday around the ‘living spaces’ where women have to sacrifice themselves for meeting the societal needs. Yet, it is understandable that they may not be telling the whole truth about their life as Audre Lorde too mentions as how difficult it is for a woman to tell the whole truth. Also, many critics are quoted to mention that autobiography itself is a problematic genre as it is a mixture of both, the truth and its associated lies. Memory, too plays a significant role in autobiographical writings as one has to rely on the past experiences. There are times when certain incidents are forgotten or they are so torturous that even memory does not recollect the way they had happened as Gusdorf said; One is never better served than by oneself. ¹

- Manisha Dagar & Krishna Nath Pande

1. Gusdorf,G. Conditions and Limits of Autobiography. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Trans. James Olney. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980,36. Print.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This treatise attempts to analyze the work of Kamala Das and Preeti Shenoy from a confessional perspective. We have included both these writers to examine the dilemmas and obstacles they face in their search for the self. Elaine (Showalter, A Literature of Their Own) 1977 mentions about the three stages which a woman has to go through in order to attain any kind of self. These two writers are significant not only because they are women but also because they give voice to thousands of women who suffer silently. More importantly, they write not from the dominating perspective of the western world but from the margins. They are excluded not only because they are women of colour but also because they belong to the so called "Third World’.

Preeti Shenoy (Shenoy, www. preetishenoy. com) has been consistently nominated by the Forbes List of the 100 most influential celebrities of India since 2013. She as a person who has varied interests ranging from painting, poetry, blogging, photography, basketball player, nature lover, motivational speaker and yoga. Kamala Das is a controversial writer who has broken many taboos. Moreover, her explorations of the self and conversion to Islam has not gone down well with the culturally elite populace including Preeti Shenoy herself. India Today(8 September,2014) has named Shenoy as ‘being unique for being the only woman in the highest-selling league,’ alluding to her male counterparts in Indian sub-continent due to the immense popularity of her books. As "Financial World"¹ mentions:

Preeti Shenoy makes her works positive and full of life.

She is read by all age groups these days due to her themes and intensive research on characters she portrays in her writings. We have included Kamala Das’s prose writings only, as her poetry had been much talked about but her prose needs a detailed examination. Above all Das is a bilingual writer writing both in English and her native language, Malayalam. In this book we have incorporated her works written in English only. Though a prolific writer, who in the words of Eunice- de-Souza (Souza 8)2: Mapped out the terrain for post-colonial women in social and linguistic terms.

Her writings have hitherto received scant critical attention, particularly from the feminist perspective. It is the purpose of this dissertation to merge this commingling of both these prominent writers. In the process of analysis we have attempted to focus on their confessional themes so as to elucidate and highlight their feminine sensibility at work like Sylvia Plath³. Their texts reveal a critical awareness of women’s subordinate position and their gender as a problematic category. In this festschrift we will focus on the autobiographical or confessional elements of these writers as autobiographies are those pieces of literature which are profoundly submerged in filtered hearts. Being confessional writers, they lay their life open for scrutiny. Yet it is understandable that they may not be telling the whole truth about their life as Audre (Lorde)⁴ too mentions how difficult it is for a woman to tell the whole truth. Also many critics mention how autobiography itself is a problematic genre as it is a mixture of truth and lies. Memory too plays a significant role in autobiographical writings as one has to rely on the past experiences in penning autobiographical and confessional aspects of one’s personae. There are times when certain incidents are forgotten or the memory does not sequentially recollect the experiences the way they happened.

Toni (Morrison)⁵ therefore uses the term "Rememorize. It is a magical maze where no way out is seen. Memory pinches remembrance to muteness as sucked feelings give way to repression. A great deal of work has been done so far on various African and British novelists in English. The main findings are regarding their style of writing and the themes intertwined in the subject matter. A lot of work has been focused on the portrayal of oriental depiction in literature. As a researcher I thought it appropriate to focus on the depiction of culture, tradition in literature, instead of confining only to the portrayal of women’s image. The review of the related literature here serves the purpose of finding what other researchers said and suggest about my chosen writers. It summarizes the findings and suggestions from the earlier researches in the field of the study in ways which entails and it considers the previous studies done by the researchers which are related to the present study. The knowledge and information show the clear past picture of the study up to the point where the line of the research emanates from. It will give proper lead and guidance to me as an author so that I could handle this study with full confidence and accuracy. Only those studies that are plainly relevant completely executed and clearly reported are involved to the best to my knowledge for the review of the literature of this critical appreciation. The word autobiography was coined towards the end of the eighteenth century at the time when three Greek components auto-bio-graphia, meaning self-life-writing" were combined to describe a literature already existing under other names ‘Bildungsroman, Diary and Memoir’. Without explaining them it will not be possible to understand autobiography or confessional writings. Bildungsroman is a special kind of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character, from his or her youth to adulthood. ‘Bildungsroman’ is a story of the growing up of a sensitive person, who looks for answers to his questions through different experiences. Generally such a novel starts with a loss or tragedy that disturbs the main character emotionally. He or she leaves on a journey to fill the vacuum then created. During this journey, the protagonist gains maturity gradually and with difficulty. Usually, the plot depicts a conflict between the protagonist and the values of the society. Finally, he or she accepts those values, and these are accepted by the society culminating in ending of the dissatisfaction. Such a type of novel is also known as coming-of-age novel. There are numerous examples in English literature but I will discuss the ones read most by me since my school days.

The first one is titled David Copperfield by Charles (Dickens)⁶. It traces the life of Copperfield from his childhood to maturity. His mother re-marries a man named Edward Murdstone, who sends David to work for a wine merchant in London. He then runs away to finally reach his eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood, who argues to raise him, and calls him Trot. David, who is employed by Dora’s father, the lawyer Mr. Spenlow, falls in love with Dora at first sight and married her. We see a change in David’s undisciplined heart, after Dora’s death, when he does some soul searching, and chooses sensible Agnes – a woman who always loved him- as his wife. Another example is ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo (Ishiguro)⁷ which is divided into three acts: childhood, adult and donor. It traces the life of Kathy, the protagonist and narrator of the novel. She is a donor who is harvested for organs to be donated to gravely ill patients. We see Kathy as free –spirited, kind and loving in her childhood. As a young woman she shows less emotion looking back at her past. At the end of the novel, she is a mature woman and accepts the lives of herself and that of her friends alike. The ‘Bildungsroman’ depicts and criticizes those vices of society which cause the protagonist to suffer. These types of novels were part of what was commonly called realism. Literary realism, in contrast to idealism; attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday normal activities and experiences, instead of using a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

In addition, the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist gives us a deep insight into the character and also helps to understand the conflict in his or her life. As a result, we can identify ourselves with the coming –of – age characters, and feel emotionally attached with interest to pass different stages of their lives, until they finally change for the good. After Bildungsroman, the second most important form of writing which emerged in literature was ‘The Diary’. It is a regularly kept record of the diarist’s activities and emotional reflections. Written primarily for the writer’s use alone, the diary had a frankness that was unlike writing done for publication. Its ancient lineage is indicated by the existence of the term, diarium in Latin which itself has derived from dies i.e. day. The diary form began to blossom in the late years of renaissance when the importance of the individual began to be stressed. In addition to their revelation of the diarist’s personality, diaries have been of immense importance for the recording of social and political history. The English diarist John (Evelyn)8 is surpassed only by the greatest diarist of all, Samuel Pepys (The Diary of Samuel Pepys)⁹, whose diary from January 1, 1660 to May 31, 1669 gives both an astonishingly frank picture of his foibles and frailties both giving a stunning picture of life in London, at the court and theatre, in his own household and in his Navy office. In the 18th century, a diary of extraordinary emotional interest was kept by Jonathan Swift (A Journal to Stella)¹⁰ who sent it to Ireland as ‘The Journal to Stella’ (written1710-13; published1766-68). This work is a surprising amalgam of ambition, affection, wit and freakiness. The most notable English diary of the late 18th century was ‘Madame d’ Arblay’ that of the novelist Fanny (Burney)¹¹. It was published sometimes in 1842-46. James Boswell’s (1740-1795)¹² Journal of a ‘Tour to the Hebrides’(1785), a genuine diary though somewhat expanded; was one of the firsts to be published in its author’s lifetime. Interest in the diary increased greatly in the first part of the 19th century, during this period many of the great diaries, including that of Pepy’s, were first published. Those of unusual literary interest, include ‘The Journal of Sir Walter Scott’ (W. Scott)¹³; the Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Dorothy)14 (published after her death in 1855),which shows her influence on her brother William; and the diary of Henry Crabb Robinson (Robinson ed. 2011)¹⁵(1775-1867), published in 1869 with much biographical material on his literary acquaintances, including Goethe, Schiller,Wordsworth and Coleridge.

The posthumous publication of the diaries of the Russian artist Marie Bashkirtseff (Collister 53-69)¹⁶sometime in 1860-84 produced a great sensation in 1887, as did the publication of the diary of Goncourt brothers, beginning in 1888. In the 20th century, the diary of explorer Robert F. Scott (R. F. Scott)¹⁷,the Journal of Katherine Mansfield (Mansfield)¹⁸, the two volumed Journal of Andre Gide(1939,1954), Anne Frank’s ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ (Frank)¹⁹ and the five-volumed ‘Diary of Virginia Woolf’(1977-84) (Woolf)²⁰ are among the most notable examples. From times immemorial ‘Diary’ is used by one and all to record their memories.

After diary, came the Memoir which was later accepted as a part of the autobiography. Memoir is a written factual account of somebody’s life. It comes from the French word memoire, which means memory, or reminiscence. This literary technique tells a story about the experience of someone’s life. A literary memoir is usually about a specific theme or about a part of someone’s life. It is a story with a proper narrative, shape; focus and subject matter involving the reflection on some particular event or place. Memoirs are often associated with popular personalities, such as celebrities, sportsmen, soldiers, singers and writers’. It allows making a collection with what the audience finds captivating, interesting, appealing and engaging. The major difference between memoir and autobiography is that a memoir is centralized and more specific storytelling, while an autobiography spans the entire life of a person with intricate details such as the childhood, family history, education and profession. A memoir is specific and focused, telling the story of somebody’s life, focusing on an important event that occurred at a specific time and place. There are numerous examples in English literature for memoirs. I will discuss a few to analyse the memoir thoroughly, ‘A Moveable Feast’ (E. Hemingway 1964)²¹ who was an acclaimed celebrity during the times when the public treated American writers like movie stars. His memoir was published after his death in 1964. It is a collection of stories about his time spent by him in Paris as a writer in 1920s, before attaining popularity. During these days, he acquainted himself with many other famous writers including Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein (t. F. Hemingway)²². ‘Speak Memory’ written by Vladimir Nabokov (Nabokov 1951)²³ is a memoir about the description of his childhood and the years he spent before moving to America in 1940. However, it is not the exact reason by critics, for they noted that it is about the tale of his art as it serves as a model of that art. In addition, it includes themes, imagery and symbols that build up a structure in the minds of readers besides making up the book. His prose writing is flawless, brilliant and overwhelming making his works more fascinating.

The next memoir in this list is ‘Homage to Catalonia’ written by George Orwell (Orwell)²⁴ describing the gripping tale of his days during the Spanish Civil War. He has described it with his typical trademark of journalistic wink, which is one of his best works. Honest and unwavering, Orwell narrates his personal experience without including any agenda, recording different things from that era as he saw them. Philip Mairet said of this account that the work shows people with a heart of innocence living in revolutionary days. ‘Maus’ (Spiegelman)²⁵ is a memoir written by Art Spiegelman; it is in the list of most well- liked memoirs with its distressing story covered with perfect illustrations. We might think that imagining different characters appearing with animal faces would make the story horrible and less intense rather more irritating. If we know the comic style, we learn that blank iconic faces and the outlook of the mice in this memoir allows the audience to put themselves in their shoes to understand the story more easily. Memoirs have been around since ancient times. Perhaps Julius Caesar (Caesar Memoirs)²⁶, (Forum Romanum Index to Caesar’s works online in Latin and it’s translation) who wrote and depicted his personal experiences about the epic battles and he was the first memoirist. Memoir serves to preserve history through a persons’ eyes. Through memoirs, celebrities also tell harsh sides of their careers. Rock stars tell their fans about their tough days spent in distress, drug addicts also reveal their struggle in seeking normal life whereas the soldiers who write war experiences besides the people who are mentally ill also describe the ups and downs of their lives to achieve clarity and these authors tell particular events that happened before their eyes. Hence, the function of memoir is to provide a window for the audience to have a look into the lives of other people. It is right to say that it was the public sphere’ of writing which was mainly dominated by male writers whereas female writings are more in the form of Journals and Diaries. So, basically we revert to the genre of autobiography, as it holds all these forms as its sub genera.

Autobiography was not classified as a distinct genre within itself until the late eighteenth century. It was Robert Southey (Southey)²⁷ who coined the term in 1809 to describe the work of a Portuguese poet. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines the word autobiography as;

"Auto means self and biography means the story of a person’s life".

Autobiography is, thus a written account by a real person about his/her life and situations. The genre of Autobiography originated in its full form in the West. Quoting Lejeune the American scholar, Linda Anderson (Anderson 1)²⁸ in her book titled ‘Autobiography’ writes that,

"Autobiography is a retrospective prose narrative produced by a real person concerning his own existence, focusing on his individual life, in particular on the development of his personality."(Linda1)

It means autobiography should be about a real person, a real situation and real circumstances which develop the personality of that narrator in the process. Basavaraj Naikar (Naikar 34)²⁹ defines the process of autobiography as:

The whole process of writing an autobiography is an act of assimilation, which involves the themes like articulateness, fidelity to experience, sensitiveness to small currents of feeling and above all the curiosity. It is also a process of self discovery and the examination of the leisure as found in the west, as well as in India.(Naikar 34).

An autobiographer selects only some prominent events from his life to reveal to the public by adopting the technique of thought filtration. Autobiography is a type of genre in the writings in English language which originated in the West and then spread to the East as well. Initially, this form of writing was adopted by the male members of the society; on the contrary, women being confined to the private domain wrote only dairies. Male writers had always been free to write about their life and get it published. In juxtaposition to that, women writers; who had been forced to be in their private if not silent completely confined their thoughts to the dairies only. The genre of writing about self has been practiced by people for centuries. Diaries are one of its kind but they are not meant to be published. In the diaries, writers share their experiences as well as their desires with their loved ones. Diaries have proved to be a great source for understanding one’s own nature. Diary writing is one of the important practices in the west in the form of a favourite activity pursued by women. It is a reflection of their experiences and a deliberate strategy to escape into a protean form of subjectivity under the tyranny of patriarchy which silences and marginalizes their life and work. It is very difficult for women writers to write about their private life and get it published. As the writings of women were not considered to be substantial and worthy of reading; therefore the writings of women were not printed by the publishers. Pointing out the technicalities of writing, Sarojini Jain (Jain 201)³⁰ in her essay ‘Autobiography: A Literary Genre’ gives two reasons for not publishing the diaries. According to her:

"In the dairies and journals we usually feel the lack of two elements which are essential to the narrative act; selectivity and movement" (Jain 201).

Madhubala, a veteran actor of ‘Mother India’; had written diary which was buried with her. However, the persons of the knowledge talked about the contents of that quite often. It highlighted that though she was a celebrity her personal life was vividly confined by her in a diary. Plato, in the fourth century B. C., wrote his autobiography in the form of letters. ‘The Seventh Epistle’; St. Augustine, at the end of 5th century A. D wrote it as Confessions. Montaigne in the later half of the sixteenth century called it ‘Essays’, and the first ‘autobiography’ was written by W. P. Scargill (W. P. Scargill)³¹. It was published in 1834 and was called The Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister. Thus we see that the genre of autobiography has been in practice for a long time. The same is not true, however; of the theoretical and critical literature on autobiography. One of the main reasons for this, according to James Olney (Olney 24)³² is:

There is the dual, paradoxical fact that autobiography is often something considerably less than Literature and that it is always something rather more than literature.(Olney24)

Georges Gusdorf (Gusdorf 30)³³, often identified as the ‘Dean of Autobiographical Studies’, asserts in his essay "Conditions and Limits of Autobiography" that: "Autobiography is not possible in a cultural landscape where consciousness of self does not, properly speaking, exist."(Gusdorf 30)

The cultural precondition for autobiography, Gusdorf (Gusdorf 32)³⁴ argues; is a pervasive concept of individualism. He recognizes autobiography as a solidly established genre notes:

Autobiography exists, unquestionably and in fine state; it is covered by that reverential rule that protests hallowed things, so that calling it into question might well seem rather foolish.

Diogenes demonstrated the reality of the movement simply by walking, and thus brought the Scoffers with the Eleatic philosopher who claimed, with reason as his authority, that it was impossible for Achilles ever to overtake the tortoise. Likewise, autobiography fortunately has not waited for philosophers to grant it the right to exist. However, in order to sort out the implicit presuppositions of autobiography, Gusdorf points out that autobiography is limited in time and space, it has not always existed nor does it exist everywhere. Furthermore, in his view autobiography writing is not to be found outside the Western culture since it expresses a concern that is associated with the Western man only. The concern which seems so natural to us, to turn back on one’s own past; recollect one’s own life in order to narrate it, is not at all universal. It asserts itself only in recent centuries and only on a small part of the map of the world. The man who takes delight in thus drawing his own image believes himself worthy of a special interest. Gusdorf’s concept of Autobiography, thus, is premised on a model of:

self that he identified as endemically Western and individualistic. One starts dissociating one’s self from the others and tends to think of himself as the center of a living space. He thinks that his existence is significant to the world and that his death will leave the world incomplete. (Gusdorf 42)

Gusdorf further asserts that autobiography is not possible in a culture where this consciousness of self does not exist – a culture which exists in India for example, where individual ego is looked upon as an illusion and salvation is sought in depersonalization. Autobiography, thus; becomes possible only, under certain metaphysical precondition. It is under the Copernican revolution that the humanity, which previously aligned its development to the great cosmic cycles, finds itself engaged in an autonomous adventure and now man knows himself as a responsible agent; gatherer of men, of lands, of power, maker of kingdoms of empire, investor of laws or of wisdom and so on. With this cultural resolution, our interest is turned from public to private history. Gusdorf also talks about the invention of mirror and the major role it plays in a child’s gradual consciousness of his own personality. He sees himself as another one among others. Autobiography, according to Gusdorf, is the mirror in which the individual reflects his own image. However, it is only after Renaissance and Reformation that Man began to take an interest in seeing himself as he is without any taint of the transcendentalism. This virtue of individuality was particularly dear to men of Renaissance.

The author of an autobiography is narrating his own history, reassembling the scattered elements of his individual life and regrouping them in a comprehensive sketch. So is the case with childhood tween years, teen years followed by Kamala Das adulthood and then came ‘My Story’. Autobiography requires a man to take distance with regard to his self in order to reconstitute himself in the focus of his unity and identity across various spans of time. Various motives of autobiography, the reasons for which an autobiography is written; according to David Misch, are confession, glorification, self- justification and posterity. An autobiographer aims at providing a kind of posthumous propaganda for posterity that otherwise is in danger of being forgotten by the society which may fail to esteem him properly, for as Gusdorf (Gusdorf 36)³⁵ notes:

One is never better served than by oneself.(Gusdorf 36)

The autobiography that is exclusively devoted to the self justification or glorification of a man, a career or a political cause is limited almost entirely to the public sector of life. The situation is altogether different when the private life assumes more importance. In Augustine’s Confessions for example, it is the history of a soul that is told to us. Furthermore autobiography also assumes the task of reconstructing the unity of a life across time. It is not simple repetition of the past for: recollection brings us not the past itself but only the presence in spirit of a world one. (Gusdorf 38)36

This second reading of experience is truer than the first for there is always a consciousness and the narrator always knows the outcome of the story he tells. Finally, according to Gusdorf, an autobiography cannot be a pure and simple record of existence, as in an account book or a log –book. In the writing of an autobiography, the literary, artistic function is of greater importance than the history or objective function claimed by the positivist criticism. Fe/Male Autobiography Women’s autobiographies, on the other hand, display quite a different orientation towards the self and the others as compared to the typical orientation found in the autobiographies by men. Women write out their inner life in autobiographies. As Patricia Meyer Specks (Spacks 56)³⁷ notes, they: define for themselves and their readers, women as she is and as she dreams. Shari Ben Stock (Benstock)³⁸, in her essay "Authorizing the Autobiographical examines the reigning attitude toward autobiography in theory and practice that often do not take women into account as the writers of autobiography. Very often the accounts of the most crucial features of womanhood are left out e. g. how woman is situated under patriarchy; how metaphors of self and writing write her out of the account; where she is placed with regard to the subjectivity- the I" that structures autobiographical accounts. It has only been since World War II, when the formal analysis of all branches of literature flourished, that autobiography began receiving consideration as a literary genre worthy of serious critical study. During this period two bibliographies of autobiography were published; William Matthew’s British Autobiography ‘An Annotated Bibliography of British Autobiographies’ (Matthews)39 published or written before 1951 and Louis Kaplan’s, ‘A Bibliography of American Autobiographies’ (L. Kaplan)40. Very surprisingly, these works do not include many important autobiographies written by women. Noted critics like Wayne Shumaker, Roy Pascal and Robert Sayers have also paid little attention to women’s autobiographical writings. James Olney, in his ‘Metaphors of Self’ (Olney)⁴¹ devotes separate chapters to Eliot Montaigne, Fox, Darwin and Newman without even a single reference to a woman’s autobiography. A strong social bias against the delineation of women’s lives often predominates critical objectivity, for; most of the critics consider women’s lives to be insignificant. In a very interesting study Estelle C. Jelinek (Jelinek 1980)⁴² notes that the attitude of these critics would be altogether different if we merely change the gender; i.e. from Mountain Wolf woman to Mountain Wolman, or from Gertrude Stein to Arthur Stein; As men these women’s experiences would be described in heroic or exceptional terms; alienation, initiation, manhood, neurosis, transformation, guilt, identity crisis and spiritual journeys. As women their experiences are viewed in more conventional terms; heartbreak, loneliness, anger, motherhood, humility, confusion and self abnegation (Jelinek 25)⁴³. The tradition of autobiography beginning with Augustine, had taken as its first premise; the mirroring capacity of the autobiographer and his universality, his role as a spokesman for the community. But there is ‘No ‘mirror of ‘Her’ era. Her invisibility results from her lack of a tradition, her marginality in male dominated culture, her fragmentation – social, political as well as psychic. At both extremes of the subjectivity and the publicity, the female autobiographer lacks the sense of radical individuality. According to Gusdorfian ideology, autobiography is the literary consequence of the rise of individualism. It must have a ‘mark’ or ‘imprint’ of man’s power. For Gusdorf (Gusdorf 98)⁴⁴, the consciousness of self upon which autobiography is premised is the sense of ‘isolated being’, a belief in the self as a finite and discrete ‘unit’ of society.

Virginia Woolf when not allowed to enter a library, as was the vogue in those days; she have to accompany some gentleman or a letter of introduction to visit it resulting in outbursts with a strife in A Room of One’s Own (Woolf 7)⁴⁵ manifesting its if in this sentence:

"Lock up your libraries if you like;

but there is no gate, no lock,

no bolt that you can set

upon the freedom of my mind."

Some background of feminist thinking is necessary for an understanding of women’s writings. Showalter set out to trace ‘The Female Literary Tradition’ (Showalter)46 in English fiction from circa 1840s in her book "A