Cultura, Género Y Justicia

Devyani Prabhat [1]

Comparative gender justice: a short study of two writers (Indian and American) -- abridged from a paper written by Devyani Prabhat [1]

The Literary Dyad of Ashapoorna Devi and Zora Neale Hurston — Different Languages: Same Message.

Literary pieces created by two writers, contemporary to each other, can reveal striking similarities even if the writers themselves are from different socio-cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Two writers, both women, whose works upon comparison exemplify this, are Ashapoorna Devi, a Bengali writer from India , and Zora Neale Hurston, a Black American writer. Both the writers, primarily novelists, were born in early twentieth century in conservative families, and went on to become pioneers in their respective literary communities.

At a time when most women in Bengal and in rural Florida received little, if no education, both Devi and Hurston persevered to reach literary heights hitherto not scaled by women. Hurston was trained in anthropology without any financial assistance from her family and Devi was self-educated because her family felt it unnecessary to formally educate a daughter. Several more such parallels could be drawn in the life stories and achievements of these two authors, but it is more interesting to examine their writings.

Both women utilized local dialects and dialogues, metaphors and symbolisms and the significance of rites and rituals. Each explored the psychological aspirations of the lead female characters in her own novels and developed themes of personal agency within larger race-class struggles. These narrative and thematic similarities could have developed from a shared interest in observing and recording the lives of the people amongst whom both women lived.

Ashapoorna Devi drew upon her own domestic experiences to flesh out her characters. Her most popular novels were Pratham Pratishruti, Subarnalata and Bakulkatha; a trilogy delineating the lifespan of three generations of Bengali women. Her three lead-women surmount long-established barriers and dare to seek personal freedom at great risk to collectively valued traditions. At times, the women in the three books prioritize gender justice over other aspirations such as the political struggle against the British Rule in India .

Hurston draws extensively from the folklore collected by her in her anthropological expeditions. Her characters also constantly search for an inner-freedom. Some of her well known works are Jonah's Gourd, Wine, Mules and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tell My Horse and Moses: Man of the Mountain. Black women in her novels, as in real life, have desires beyond achieving racial equality. Like Devi, Hurston gives precedence to a woman's self-fulfillment over other conflicts such as racial injustice.

Indeed, Black writers contemporary to Hurston, were dismayed that she had not ‘adequately' portrayed the oppression of Blacks by Whites in her best known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God. The theme of this book; that of the pursuit of dreams of a Black woman and the search for her inner-self (not detached from her sexuality), was considered a frivolous subject to write on at a time when racial abuse was rampant in America. Ashapoorna Devi was similarly derided often by critics in India as a ‘kitchen-writer' who did not examine complex conceptions of politics and race while looking at the role of women in the household. Whether she heeded such criticism is doubtful; she expressly dedicated her masterpiece, Pratham Pratishruti, to the feminist movement in Bengal at a time when the freedom struggle against the British was the mainstay of Bengali writing.

A Hurston character elopes, goes through three marriages and murders her third spouse—all in the search for a critical utopia for herself. A character created by Ashapoorna Devi uproots her husband and family from rural Bengal to reach Calcutta —a city which symbolized hope for Bengali women in her era. The oral elements incorporated by Devi and Hurston render it possible to understand the expectations and motivations of these characters. Metaphors such as the pear tree, the porch and the mule are used by Hurston to engage the reader more than a simple literary text could have done. The darkening storm clouds, the plaintive cry of the birds and the deep shadows in the fields at night, set the stage for the somber moods of Devi's characters at an anxious stage in a novel.

Academics of early feminist literature would find it fruitful to examine how intergenerational dialogue is a recurrent theme for Hurston and Ashapoorna Devi. Missing from the writings of these two authors is any defeatist attitude. The women's movement is illumined with hope in their works; this message rings out loud and clear without being didactic, preachy or pushy. Coming from two women who never met, and lived in two continents far-removed in geography, even more so in the early 1900s, the notes of this message reverberate and echo in harmony long after the creators themselves have departed. None borrowed from the other; but together, they sound even more convincing.