2021
32
Purba Medinipuir, India
Abstract: When it comes to subjugation of women in the Indian context, patriarchal culture plays the most dominant role. Additionally post-colonial experiences also tend to thrust women physically and psychologically into further subjugation. While patriarchy works at the centre of the scheme, post-colonialism forges a shift from the core to the periphery. With an ironic tinge, the latter, by often exposing women to an alien culture, happens to condition eventually their emancipation and identity too. The present paper aims at investigating the complex interactions among different forces—political, social, cultural and psychological—that make the shift from subjugation to emancipation possible. With special reference to six women from the select 20th century narratives, it has been analysed how the feminine ego undergoes a journey from the Apollonian composure to the Dionysian unrest, ignited by the desires for an identity hitherto suppressed by the cultural deterministic agencies. Post-colonial hegemony, creating an amnesia about the cultural determiners (like her past, pedigree or traditional moralities), makes her realize the meaninglessness of her present existence and the potential new identity and emancipation waiting her. To assert her identity, Mrs. Mainwaring wanted to be ‘pukka’; Pecola wanted to internalise the ‘white’ ideal of beauty and love. Drawing from the critical perspectives of post- colonialism, feminism and psychology, the article enumerates the attempts made by women to break away from the different forms of cultural subordination (effected by geographical dislocation, class, caste or gender) to find a new space and identity that can help them grapple with the post-colonial reality.
Keywords: Post-Colonialism, Feminine Identity, Women Emancipation, Dionysian Ego, Cultural Determinism.
Article
Identityshift to Emancipation of Women: Study of Apollo-Dionysus conflict in the Modern Narratives
Publicación: 15 Diciembre 2021
In the history of post-colonization, probable the women turned out to be the worst of sufferers, because debilitated already by their natural and cultural subjugations, they are found to be the softest targets for further exploitation. History bears proofs that power dynamics often centre around women, and strategies like kidnapping, torture or rape against women are adopted to brandish unquestionable domination and supremacy. Thus, on one hand, both patriarchy and political forces undervalued their strength and potentials. But on the other, the post-colonial exposures gave them opportunity to discover these potentials and re-define their identities. The sooner the women are exposed to world of knowledge, education and politics in the post-colonial era, the more firmly they get initiated into a progressive world-view, the more strongly the come to challenge the means of their subjugations, class, gender or caste. It created a new space for them, motivated to mould a new identity.
Thus, the situation itself, where subjugation becomes multiplied, and women need to resist it, is paradoxical or like a two-edged sword. The concept of resistance involves inherently the ideas about liberation, identity or individuality. The mystery about this paradox is resolved, as soon as we understand the essential difference between the two contrastive world-views, of the colonized culture and of the colonizers’ cultures. “Postcolonial literatures-cultures are thus constituted in counter-discursive rather than homologous practices, and they offer field’s counter discursive strategies to the dominant discourse.”(Tiffin, 96).
Thus, in the post-colonial contexts, women are confronted with a psychological crisis that takes the form of a severe conflict between their older values (prescribed by patriarchy) and new moralities, based on reason and more democratic. In the Nietzschian terminology, it can be said, Apollonian1 composure is now challenged by the Dionysian ego. Eventually, it leads slowly but steadily to the assertion of a new identity and their emancipation.
Since the article deals with the search for identity and emancipation of women in the post-colonial context, everything stems from the issue of women’s subordination to the patriarchal forces. Patriarchy reduces them to the status of being ‘other’ or the second sex (Beauvoir 1974), fully a sex dependent on patriarchy (Millet 1977). Bhasin (2006) explained, ‘patriarchy’ refers “to male domination, to the power relationships by which men dominate women, and to characterise a system whereby women are kept subordinate in a number of ways” (3).So much literature is available on either women emancipation or role of post-colonialism in it. The book by Rakesh, S and Nawale (2012) is a collection of essays on select Indian literary texts where women’s journey from the bondages to emancipation has been analysed from different perspectives. Many recent studies like Seraman and Selvakkumar (2011), Kara, Erdemir and G. Ve Demirtaş (2020), Aminur Rashid (2020) looked into Toni Morrison’s presentation of the issue of women emancipation, In fact, a huge body of literary production across cultures has had a very faithful reflection of the reality about women’s struggle for identity and emancipation, about the antagonistic socio-cultural or political forces.However, in the process of the shift from bondage to liberation, the psychological aspects have not been thrown much light upon.
The present paper aims at investigating into the complex interactions among different forces— political, social, cultural, and psychological—that make it possible. With special reference to six women from the select 20th century narratives, it has been analysed how the feminine ego undergoes a journey from the Apollonian composure to the Dionysian unrest, ignited by the desires for an identity hitherto suppressed by the cultural deterministic agencies. The article intends to look into the interrelationships among the primary forces oppression of oppression—state, race, man (gender) and class and their relative corrosiveness. The secondary objective here is to expose the paradox in the whole phenomenon: the post-colonial experiences that are otherwise impose on women a sense of ‘double subjugation’ can also condition their emancipation and identity too, along with another primary oppressor, namely man-made patriarchy.
i) How the select women reacted to the post-colonial transformations in the society and socio-cultural determinants
ii) Why some of them succumbed to all these forces, while the others could successfully assert their identities fighting against these forces? Do the latter have to make compromises or emerge more powerful than ever?
iii) How are Apollo and Dionysus relevant to the women’s struggle for identity in the post- colonial context?
To be more specific with a critical concentration in our study, the whole discussion has been confined to the select modern literary texts and the women protagonists therein. The following three pairs have been investigated and analysed:
(a) Rosie in R.K. Narayan’s The Guide Bimala in Tagore’s Home and the World
(b) Mrs. Mainwaring in Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie Mrs. Das in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies
(c) Pecola in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest EyePilate in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
These women have been studied for their socio-economic stances and struggles for identity in the colonial context to examine what oppressive forces constructed their individual stories of sufferings and emancipation.
The primary texts mentioned above have been core areas of our critical interest. Other critical books and journal articles have served us as the secondary materials.
For the analytical discussion of the central problem of women’s identity problem in a given political context, her struggle for liberty and emancipation, mainly three critical perspective, i.e. post- colonialism, feminism and psychology(in particular, Nietzschian concepts of Apollonian and Dionysian ego) have been used (for detailed information on these two concepts, cf.Appendix-TWO and Appendix-THREE).
In addition to their subjugation to the dominant patriarchal culture, post-colonial contexts often thrust women physically and psychologically into further subjugation, forcing the shifts from the core to the periphery, to an alien culture. Let us examine these six women for the modern narratives to have a look at the ways they negotiate with the determining forces across cultures.
First, the character of Rosie in R. K. Narayan’s The Guide (first published in 1958) is to be evaluated here in terms of her relation with the potential oppressive agencies like state, race, gender or class (cf. Appendix-ONE).
If Rosie is a child of the post-colonial ideals, and Raju of patriarchy, their relationship is a beautiful emblem of ambivalent negotiation between these two forces, the political and cultural. In the more democratic social setting, Rosie, though a daughter of a Devadasi2, could get her MA in Economics. Though marriage was not her choice, making love to Raju was. Actually, being empowered by the modern education that made her conscious about the rights and prerogatives of a wife, her infidelity was a protest against the patriarchal claims upon her. But patriarchy again stood against her double-faced. The first was a straightforward one in the form of a harsh censure (of the Raju- Rosie relation) by its agents like Gaffur, Raju’s mother and uncle, who try to enslave the female in the name of cultural heritage. The second role is an oblique and tricky one, played by Raju himself.
Raju was a man to be acted upon by every force on this earth, however contradictory they might be like patriarchy-feminism, orthodoxy-modernity. When Rosie chose to sleep with him, Raju was acted upon by feminism exercising its own liberty. Initially, she created for Raju all the illusions, and Raju was steeped in them. Then, as long as Rosie needed Raju for her profession career as dancer, Raju was used and manipulated by Nalini. He was acted upon by patriarchy, when he was always motivated by his self-love and narcissism rather than by any creative stimulation or true love (needed badly by Rosie who believed, ‘Lover means always God’). Rosie’s liberation was almost complete when she realized this hollowness, “If I have to pawn my last possession, I’ll do it to save you from jail. But once it’s over, leave me once and for all; that’s all I ask” (222).
Even when Rosie was in a relationship with Raju, Rosie never lost her cool and rational judgments. The Apollonian principles in her constantly override and dominate over the Dionysian. No doubt, Rosie encouraged Raju in certain ways, but it’s more than mere seduction; it’s a frank confession of a love-deprived woman in a constant search desperately for some warmth of company Marco to her could never offer. She was in a constant search for true love, some creative stimulation and productivity in man. These are the qualities that can connect the farthest poles together (the colonizer-the colonized or the patriarchal-the feminist). So, as Raju exhibited utmost intellectual barrenness having none of these qualities, and Marco finally showed his scholarly productivity, the effects of both post-colonialism and patriarchy started waning fast. Rosie had her own identity now, and there was no reason why she would accept either, “…Neither Marco nor I had had any place in her life, which had its own sustaining vitality and which she herself had underestimated” (223).
Like Rosie, Bimala in R. N. Tagore’s Home and the World (first published in 1916) is truly an individualized woman, inevitably confronted with a number of oppressive agencies (cf. Appendix- ONE) in her zealous search for identity. Throughout the action, Bimala was seen oscillating between the codes imposed by the patriarchal society.
At the backdrop of Swadeshi movement, the novel puts Bimala in a position where she has her two choices ‘home’ and the ‘world’ outside. The metaphor stands for the two different ideologies represented by her husband Nikhil and his swadeshi friend, Sandip
Until the arrival of Sandip in her world, Bimala had been spending a life of a zaminder’s wife satisfied (if not necessarily happy) with her ‘ignorantly calm conjugal life’. Nikhil epitomizes an ideology that promotes benevolence, enlightenment, progressiveness, and liberalness. He was a man of global vision and didn’t approve of the kind of life Bimala is living complacently being confined to ‘home’ only. He wanted his wife to have a firsthand experience of the ‘world’ outside. Thus, he was a man of the purest form of Apollonian culture that generally has a slow but steady percolating effect. Encouraged, Bimala stepped into the world outside in order to find a new identity for herself, for the Indian women
“for we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself.” (84)
But the world outside is not at all what it looks from a distance. It started getting into Bimala’s psyche to threaten the long seated Apollonian principles; her sensibilities got fully taken over by Sandip, a charismatic man to represent the Dionysian. With his verbosity and eloquence smacking hard of belligerent nationalism and jingoism soon overshadowed moral sensibilities. Which one to choose, her husband’s humanitarian philosophy or boisterous patriotism of Sandip? Apollonian cool and composed rationality or Dionysian dance of fanaticism in the name of country and its freedom? Completely torn asunder, Bimala started groping for an appropriate guiding principle, never coming to her conclusion until she returns home with a severe wound inside. Now she got her wisdom that exposed that Nikhil’s hypocrisy and his love for country being nothing other than self-love. The husband at ‘home’ liberated her in a literal sense, whereas the ‘world’ left her mind liberated from the darkness of ignorance, illusions, and irrationalities
“It is only when we get to the point of letting the bird out of its cage that we can realize how free the bird has set us. Whatever we cage, shackles us with desire whose bonds are stronger than those of iron chains. I tell you, sir, this is just what the world has failed to understand. They all seek to reform something outside themselves. But reform is wanted only in one’s own desires, nowhere else, nowhere else!” (658)
Thus, the Apollonian principles could at last bring in a sea-change to her psyche dominating over the Dionysian. The transformation in Bimala takes place as an outcome of a unique situation where British colonization brought new liberal ideas and patriarchy was slowly losing its power. For Bimala, the search for identity is complete when all forms of patriarchal interventions are almost nowhere. as a compound effect of political transformation that India was going through and a huge momentum of feministic ideals.
1952) is to be evaluated here in terms of her relationship with the potential oppressive agencies like state, and such cultural determinants as race, gender, or class (cf. Appendix-ONE). Among the women under study here, Mrs. Mainwaring probably cuts the most pathetic figure, as the colonial rule by the Britishers in India has pushed her into a corner where no retaliation is probably strong enough. As one from the Anglo-Indian community (thereby sharing both the European and Indian blood) in the post-colonial India, Mrs. Main Waring found she had neither her ‘past’ nor future.
Mrs. Mainwaring has only a bitter present to cope up with. Her ambition to be ‘pukka’3,manifested through her marriages to the non-Indians, represents her desperate efforts to fight back against her destiny. Her sexual promiscuity or her ambiguous attitude4 to Munoo may be considered as her futile attempts to break the shackles of patriarchy. In blood, she belongs to both the races, but to none psychologically. Her post-colonial experiences, creating an amnesia about the cultural determiners (like her past, pedigree or traditional moralities), make her realize the meaninglessness of her present existence and fabricate an ideal new identity and emancipation awaiting her. Thus, the Dionysian rift makes her a fractured personality embodying the severe conflict of the Anglo- Indian community refusing to identify with the natives but never allowed by the English either to belong here or to identify with them.
Mrs. Das in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies (first published in 1999) is to be evaluated here in terms of her relation with the most powerful oppressive agency like state, and such cultural determinants as race, gender or class (cf. Appendix-ONE).In case of Mrs. Das, diaspora in its physical form lead to the domination of the Dionysian. Mrs. Das went to the core of a different culture where sexual chastity is not much valued. Her deliberate loss of sexual chastity can easily be described as her initiation into true worth and significance of love and marriage. Though she is now living in the USA and thereby somewhat detached from the native culture and society, her inheritance of Indian value system has been shown running through her veins as evident in Lahiri’s well-designed references to her upbringing and education. The diasporic experience and the inevitable cultural clash (or interaction) has to leave a mark upon those who go through it. Not only she lost her chastity to the Punjabi friend on the sofa, but she also bore his baby, Bobby. Bobby is symbolically representing the mark of the damage done to her cultural and moral integrity owing to her diasporic shift. She has to bury her guilty consciousness in the dark chasm of deception, hypocrisy and infidelity (involuntary to an extent though).
Mrs. Das had been fighting the battle for a long time, bow on the verge of losing the battle. Torn between the two pulls, she seemed to be at a loss to understand where (or to whom) she belongs, what culture to be adhered to. Her sense of double consciousness and dual belongings created a abysmal void or chasm in her psyche, making room for the over-domineering Dionysian principles in her.
Pecola in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (first published in 1970) is the next woman protagonist under study confronted with the potential oppressive forces of state, and the cultural determinants like race, gender or class (cf. Appendix-ONE).
Pecola’s case is a pathetic story of the omnipresence and omnipotence of the white aesthetics, from which there was no escape for the black girls in America: “…all the world had agreed that a blue- eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured”(The Bluest Eye, p. 20). Whatever white is beautiful—black ugly, this is what constitutes the essence of the aesthetics. As long as physical whiteness remains the American standard of beauty, Pecola’s physical ugliness is an infinite reality, no matter whatever she tried to reverse it. About Pecola’s futile pursuit of beauty, Paul C. Taylor aptly commented, “the experience of a black woman … differs from the experiences of … Jewish and Irish women” (Taylor, 20). This aesthetic is a well-designed cultural product to keep the black people seriously marginalized in this society for their blackness only. Pecola initially tried in her own way (desperately but not potentially) but failed inevitably to internalize the white ideal of beauty.
Of all the women discussed here, Pecola faced the crudest form of patriarchy, i.e. the rape by her own father. It simply ruined her sense of being. Nothing went right for the girl, against whom all the forces and determinants joined hands together. Consequently, she is altogether a fractured personality. Her condition worsened rapidly, as she had neither any Nikhil nor any Marco to support her, nor any connection with/respect for her past, nor for her own cultural values. She suffered even more bitterly than Mrs. Mainwaring, though Pecola should have had no crisis of ‘belonging’ at all. She even went to the extent of despising her own colour, complexion, people and culture. Thus, Pecola was confronted with all the hostile racial, political forces and the more hostile cultural determinants. She was totally over-possessed by the Dionysian principles that left almost no room for the Apollonian.
Lastly,the character of Pilate in another novel by Toni Morrison, The Song of Solomon (first published in 1977) has been evaluated here in terms of her relation with state, and the cultural determinants like race, gender or class (cf. Appendix-ONE).
She was an orphan, and because of her ‘otherness’ was cast out by her close ones, by the society itself. But she retained her faith in the richness of her past, her roots, her own cultural heritage. Pilate was like a leader, a moral guardian for the whole black community. Throughout the action of the novel, the Apollonian principles in Pilate Dead dominate so strongly over the Dionysian that she was rendered quite incapable of any ills and evils. Milkman her nephew was initially enslaved in his mind. But with his aunt’s help finally could he have a spiritual journey (at the spiritual level, from death to regeneration) to come to a juncture where he could discover his own past and realize his true cultural identity.
Though the eccentric old lady had experienced, as the slavery aftermath, a huge cultural trauma, she tried to get her black people off the collective amnesia. She had been thoroughly faithful to her charge of retaining the cultural memory shared by her people.
Historically, the colonial and patriarchal meet together at the crossroad with a common agendum to look upon women as marginal and inferior beings. Still, one force (colonization/patriarchy) is so powerful in itself that absence of the other hardly reduces the range and intensity of her suffering.
Post-colonial hegemony often creates amnesia about the cultural roots and traditions, thereby creates a void with no established guidelines to follow, no tested solid ground to step on. On the contrary, patriarchy with all its cultural determinants (like her past, pedigree or traditional moralities) forces her into conformity sacrificing her own identity. But when these two forces join hands together, makes her realize the meaninglessness of her present existence and the potential new identity and emancipation waiting her. Confronted with the coalition, the woman is either guided by the Apollonian or Dionysian principles. When the Apollonian predominates, she can take the advantages of both the forces. Her post-colonial experiences teach her to exercise a liberal philosophy and more rational judgment. With this lesson she can evaluate anew the paradoxes of the role thrust upon her by her culture, and to assert a new identity. While it happens to Pilate, Bimala and Rosie, the Dionysian took hold of Mrs. Mainwaring, Mrs. Das. and Pecola, who owing to their fractured personalities could not avert the foul play of their socio-cultural determinants.
The Dionysian ego in these women forced them into a state of “inspiration,” an ecstatic unity, an identification (perhaps with a higher entity or community). A sensible person with sanity and rationality intact could have never got this inspiration. But these women ‘inspired’ to chase tirelessly their dream of emancipation can neither succumb to patriarchy and post-colonial hegemony, nor could they conform to the prevailing value system. Starting from Bimala to Pecola, all of them got the inspiration and dreamt of asserting a new identity. The failure or success in their mission depends on factors often unintelligible to themselves. Even his unintelligibility may be called a by-product of the post-colonial experiences that forced them to be obsessed with binarities that can never meet, such as man-woman, the master-slave, the white-the black. Too much of feministic obsessions lead one to believe that man is her eternal scourge and nemesis. Too much of sense of belonging (to one race or class) begets prejudices and villainizes the other side.
To be healthy and to get rid of the Dionysian ego, the ‘otherness’ of those in the enemy camp (in patriarchy it’s man; in the colonial premises it is the white masters/colonizers) should also be recognized and paid the due respect. Even within the patriarchal schemata, Tagore’s Bimala or Narayan’s Rosie could pay this respect to man because they could recognize the roles of man in helping the women get rid of the temptations of Dionysian ego. It might be unfortunate but not unnatural for Bimala or Rosie that they came across incomplete males; they could find boisterously passionate lover in one person (Sandip and Raju respectively), and intellectuality in another (respectively Nikhil and Marco). But they never failed to respect the otherness of ‘man’. Therefore, they never lost the Apollonian ego altogether, and never became too rebellious against the prevalent value system. That is why, Bimala or Rosie was no fractured personality like Mrs. Das in Jhumpa Lahiri’s narrative or Mrs. Mainwaring of Anand. These last two women were totally carried away by the Dionysian ego, since they allowed this fire to be fanned by both patriarchy and the politics of subordination and domination. They suffered from a double-consciousness and unhomeliness. Pilate Dead of Morrison, on the other hand, is an example to show how a strong faith in one’s own past and cultural heritage can help her overcome these traumatic experiences, can help the Apollonian attributes prevail.
Frantz Fanon in his The Wretched of the Earth talked about the need to reclaim the ‘past’ and to completely undermine the colonizers’ disregard for this past. The colonial masters deliberately injected into the native psyche a hard dose of ‘amnesia’, a complete forgetfulness about the past. The same can happen to the diasporic generations too. The second generations are trapped in this cobweb even more easily, since they have never been in contact with the past, never dipped into their culture. Almost oblivious of the ‘past’, Pecola or Pilate need to make a search for a secured ‘present’ on which she can stand and assert her well-defined identity before she moves on to the ‘future’. Truly deprived of their African pedigree, these African girls are left make frantic efforts to identify themselves with the culture they are brought in. But such efforts, however motivated and desperate they might have been, are fated to be the futile enterprises. Eventually their diaspora- induced ‘amnesia’, the breach from their own culture brings them to an existential crisis, having nowhere to find any true sense of belonging.
In the search for identity and emancipation of women, men’s roles are never to be ignored. Often masculinity is assigned a dual role in these textual discourses, one functioning as the Dionysian instrument, but the other Apollonian. On one hand there are Sandip, Raju or Das’ Punjabi friend, there are Nikhil, Marco or Raj on the other. At the first step the women protagonists, Bimala, Rosie and Mrs. Das were confronted with a choice between delusion and reality. At the outset when Dionysus prevailed they chose the first, and suffered invariably. Bimala and Mrs. Das (in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Interpreter of Maladies) were victims of their over-credulousness initially goading them to trust the deceptions of the paramour (Sandip, Raju and the Punjabi friend). Though suffering each of them came to terms with the reality, the true meaning of marriage, the notions of conjugal fidelity and love.
Another important aspect in the whole scheme of things is the ‘homecoming’ or return to the root’ and community approval. Pilate didn’t return to the root in the sense that she never got detached from it in her heart of hearts. But physically or metaphorically such distancing took place in case of Mrs. Das, Bimala or Rosie. This iteritineris or coming outside may symbolize their attempts to defy this patriarchal authority. But once they come out of it, they miserably failed, and could realize the omnipotence of the reality. This physical shift is indicative of the bigger shift from their stratified existence to the harsh realities, a kind of self-discovery, an epiphany.
However, it proved ultimately that, their struggle for identity cannot be successful away from society, without community approval. Bimala could find her true identity after coming back ‘Home’, Rosie did with recognition from her husband, and so did Mrs. Das coming back again to her cultural root. This is what may be called ‘rite of initiation’, a kind of coming to terms with the social and moral responsibilities toward the root and their own community. Before it is achieved, all of them were confined to the boundary defined by dominant patriarchal ideology.
In the stories where the Apollonian prevail finally, along with the female protagonist, man also is seen refusing patriarchal interventions to help her. As the previous discussion has already made it evident, Nikhil did it for Bimala, Marco for Rosie. Marco or Nikhil didn’t expect his wife to love him simply as her husband (i.e. a rightful possessor of her body, mind and soul) out of a social and cultural obligation. He allowed her to see the world outside, to find herself out, and then to love and respect him as a true individual, a real ‘man’, who outranks any other like Sandip or Raju with his creative motivation, self-respect, and dignity, liberal and progressive views. The truth is that, the greatest can be the humblest. Tagore’s Nikhil had that strength– patience, tolerance, admiration of the individuality, broader vision, and liberation from narrowness of self-confinement or patriarchy in general. Nikhil represented a new generation of liberal individualists who can put woman at par with men in all possible senses.
The textual details and analysis above reveal that these women had to assert their identities against so many odds. When they failed, the fault often lied very prominently with them as well, along with the other frustrating forces. They often went to the farthest extreme, thereby violating the norms. Sometimes, for them the demarcation lines between the norms (social or moral) and the patriarchal interventions became blurred. To assert her identity Mrs. Mainwaring wanted to be ‘pukka’; Pecola wanted to internalise the ‘white’ ideal of beauty and love; Mrs. Das in spite of her American upbringing and education couldn’t escape from the Indian value system where loss of chastity and fidelity is deemed to be severe depravation. While Mainwaring is suffering from an acute sense of rootlessness that is thrust upon her as a by- product of centuries of British colonization, Pecola and Mrs. Das tried to adapt themselves with a different cultural tradition by adopting a new value system and sacrificing their own. In a sense, they are torn asunder between two sets of values and culture. But Bimala, Pecola and Rosie, who succeeded in their win- identity/emancipation mission, managed to gain the recognition or approval of the patriarchal structure itself. They could bring forth the issue of autonomous subjectivity of women by following the norms, by cultivating the Apollonian culture.
Drawing from the critical perspectives of post-colonialism, feminism and psychology, the article enumerates the attempts made by women to break away from the different forms of cultural subordination (effected by geographical dislocation, class, caste, or gender) to find a new space and identity that can help them grapple with the post-colonial reality.
The present paper is an innovative amalgam of post-colonial, feminist, socio-cultural and psychological concepts adopted to show the woman shifting to her Dionysian self and asserting her rightful space and identity, by often deriving her motivations from the socio-cultural and political turn of events. Thus, it is an original attempt to analyse the select Indian and American texts and their women protagonists through the lens of Nietzschian concept of Apollonianism and Dionysianism.
