Question

Kamala Das as a feminist poet with reference
to the poem forest fire​

Answer 1

Answer:

As a child of colonial cultural hybridity and subject to double marginalisation colonial as well as patriarchal, Kamala Das uses her poetry as the medium to revolt against the restraints and patriarchal negation in a male-dominated society while discovering and asserting her individuality, identity and freedom. "The mother of modern English Indian poetry" as The Times calls her in 2009, Kamala Das is seen as one of the most formative influences of Indian English poetry. Her poetry that consists of three volumes of celebrated poems - Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973) launched a literary crusade and in many ways dismantled the so-called conventional submissive and domestic image of an Indian woman while at the same time portrayed the modern Indian woman's journey from tradition to modernity. Kamala Das in her poetry is simply "every woman who seeks love". She is 'the beloved and the betrayed' expressing her "endless female hungers" and "the mutual whispers at the core of womanhood"(Naik). This paper will be an attempt to highlight the underlying notes of feminine impulses on three selected poems of Kamala Das, viz, "Summer In Calcutta", "An Introduction" and "Forest Fire".