- Rajeesh K.P.
Ph. D Scholar
Department Of
English
Pondicherry
University
Abstract
The
nature of terms like ‘spokesman’, ‘chairman’ have been subjected to discussion
in language studies with respect to the gender they signify. Have we ever
thought about similar implications engendered by the term ‘Hero’ rendering it
problematic? Feminists always complain about the patriarchal impulses contained
within the English Language. Does the term ‘hero’ also encompass the idea of
‘heroine’ within it? It is true that new coinages like ‘She roes’ are in
existence today. The paper tries to examine whether attempts to bring female
heroes to the limelight are mere preaching. It also deals with how the
conditions within society makes it difficult for aspirants to come up with
women oriented movies and writings. The idea of ‘Superstardom’, Female superheroes (both movies and comics),
the ways in which female characters function as
mere adjuncts to male enterprises deprived of independent space and
voice will also find space in the paper. This will be discussed in the context
of select movies and other literary genres. Ideas in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces and
Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey (A contrapuntal reading of the
first text) will also be borrowed.
Keywords:
Hero, Patriarchy, Superstardom, Superheroes, She roes, Feminism.
Possibilities of
a Sheroic Shift: A Study of Select Texts
Language
is an important arm of the culture of any society. It becomes a window to the
politics, beliefs, and attitudes of people living within a society. Sociolinguists
have accused the English language for the large degree of sexism it embodies.
Children who learn through the medium of this language partake the patriarchal
impulses hidden within it which manifests in their behaviour and other
activities. This gender bias with regard to language begins with the idea that
the word ‘woman’ is derived from the word ‘man’. Guimei He in her article ‘ An
Analysis of Sexism in English’ truly observes that “ … the addition of a
feminine suffix to masculine human agent nouns usually does more than simply
change the gender reference of the word, it often attaches a meaning of
triviality, of lesser status or dependence to the term. It shows that woman is
affiliated to man, so it is a kind of linguistic discrimination against women”.
(332). To specify, the word ‘governor’ means a ruler and ‘governess ‘refers to a
woman in charge of teaching children. Words like ‘chairman’ and ‘Spokesman’ do
not have a female equivalent. Similarly have we ever thought about similar
implications in the word ‘Hero’ rendering it problematic? Does the term
encompass the idea of heroine within it?
Does the ‘he’ in ‘hero’ make it a male
prerogative? There is a generally accepted view among the society that heroes
are males. This can also be perceived in religions where male deities enjoy
greater prestige than their female counterparts. A heroic act is described as
one that involves risk taking and social service. The former converts this
pro-social act into heroism. Selwyn W. Becker and Alice. H. Eagly in their
essay ‘The Heroism of Men and Women’ state that “the essential themes of
masculinity encompass the idealization of “reckless adventure, daring exploits,
and bold excesses of all kinds” (164). In literature it all begins with
Beowulf, saving the King of Hrothgar from the demon Grendel and meeting death
at the hands of a dragon that he kills too. The unquenchable thirst of Ulysses
for adventures and travel is explicit in the lines in Tennyson’s eponymous poem
‘I will drink life to the lees’ and ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to
yield. This formula also can be found in fairy tales where the seven dwarfs
save Snow White from the Queen, Flynn Rider saves Rapunzel from Mother Gothel.
Even in Superhero comics there were no remarkable women characters before the
nineteen forties and those existing appeared as sidekicks to the male
protagonists.
Perhaps here there is a need to
distinguish between ‘Superhero’, the genre and ‘super hero’ where ‘super’ is the adjective and hero is
the noun .In the first case physical prowess becomes an important criteria,
that is identified mainly with men. This term can be applied in the second
sense to both men and women. God created mother because he cannot be present
everywhere is an oft quoted comment that we come across. Another saying goes
thus. The safest abode for us is in the mother’s womb. Isn’t our mother our
greatest hero? She is the one who imparts us with the first lessons of life,
one who laughs with us in our happiness and cries along with our sorrows. Her
multitasking nature makes her a super hero.
Florence Nightingale receiving a
call from God took up the vow to revolutionise the world of nursing. Born to a
rich British family, she decided to opt nursing. This decision was counter to
the wishes of her close ones. The act was in fact heroic in the sense that she
violated the code of conduct established for affluent British ladies. She took
great pain to alleviate the humble conditions of the soldiers who were wounded
in the Crimean war. She ensured that the supply of medicines were in full
swing, proper hygiene was maintained and took steps to curtail infections.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem ‘Saint
Philomena’ calls her ‘the lady with the lamp’ and talks about how her
solitary rounds along the hospital at night brings joy, satisfaction, and a
feeling of indebtedness on their face. This brings us to the question of the
role of altruism in the process of becoming a hero. Is it mandatory that a hero
has to be selfless and disinterested? One can be truly generous. The patience
shown by nurses at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai in taking care of
Aruna Shenbaug, a nurse who had to lead a prolonged vegetative existence for
forty two years as a result of being sexually assaulted is a modern instance of
altruism showcased by nurses. We can also find a class of heroes who put on a
false face of being generous but in reality are not so. A closer examination of
this issue can be done later.
Joan of Arc’s journey from witchery to
sainthood finds place in the annals of heroic stories of the world. Deprived of
elementary education, Joan of Arc was deeply influenced by catholic ideals. Her
efforts to reinstate Charles of Valois who had been thrown out of his position
by the Anglo-Burgundians were commendable. She was determined to protect France
from her its enemies. Disguised as a man, riding on a horse she fought with the
Anglo Burgundians and drove them away. At the end she was accused of witchery,
heresy and was burnt at the stake. She was canonised to the cult status of a
saint and is celebrated in the world of art and literature.
If we attempt to look for an Indian
version of Joan of Arc, it would obviously be Rani Lakshmi Bhai, commonly known
as ‘Jhansi Rani’. She represented bravery and patriotism and played a stunning
role in the Revolt of 1857 against the British Raj. She was brought up in an
unconventional way and was adept in the art of weaponry and in handling heroes
and elephants at times of war. She had a very tough time when she lost her
husband and her child at the springtime of her life. She fought tooth and nail
against the efforts of Lord Dalhousie to annex Jhansi to the British Empire.
She had to succumb to the sword of the British leaving a never fading stamp in
the history of India.
These are just a few instances of female
heroism. History is replete with heroic female figures. Though certain acts may
not suit women due to its physical demands, many of the heroic acts do not put
forward these restrictions. It is thus misleading and senseless to associate
heroism with a particular sex. Heroism
also emerges from the ability to show empathy to fellow beings, something that
women are very much capable of. Selwyn W. Becker observes that
In fact, one of the reasons that we did
not examine heroism in military or other dangerous occupational roles such as fire
fighter is that the exclusion of women disallowed comparing the heroism of
women and men in the same situations. The high visibility of men’s heroism in
such roles has allowed courage and heroism to be ascribed more to men than to
women and to become culturally elaborated as elements of desirable masculinity.
Many of women’s heroic actions of, for example, hiding holocaust victims or
giving a kidney to a family member are inherently quite private, known to few,
and in the case of rescuing Jews, very
carefully hidden. Volunteering for the Peace Corps and Doctors of the World is
surely public but lacks the high visibility of military heroism or rescuing in
high stakes situations of sudden emergencies. (175).
Becker
makes this observation in the context of discussing Carnegie Hero medals,
instituted by the Carnegie hero fund commission to honour heroes in U.S.A and
Canada who risks his or her own life while trying to save others and how the
commission fails to give adequate recognition to the milestones achieved by women.
The paper presenter would also invite the
attention of the audience/readers to the idea of ‘femocracy’ an ideology that
maintains that women have to be linked to men occupying in high political
positions to scale heights in politics. Women in Zimbabwe are expected to toe
the patriarchal positions compromising female political stands. Women who have
every right to be treated as heroines are deliberately forgotten due to their
lack of contact with men of high status. (Fake Heroines and the falsification
of history in Zimbabwe (1980-2009)).
It is crucial to bring into discussion a book
by the name ‘The Heroine’s Journey’
by Maureen Murdock that is considered to be an alternative reading of Joseph
Campbell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand
Faces’. Campbell introduces the concept of a ‘Monomyth’ universal mythic
patterns that could be found in play in all stories. He bases this study on
Carl Jung’s concept of ‘Archetypes’ “constantly repeating characters that could
be found occurring in the dreams of all people and myths of all culture.
The hero is introduced in this ordinary world,
where he receives the call to adventure. He is reluctant at first but is
encouraged by the wise old man or woman to cross the first threshold, where he
encounters tests and helpers. He reaches the innermost cave, where he endures
the supreme ordeal. He seizes the sword or the treasure and is pursued on the
road back to his world. He is resurrected and transformed by this experience.
He returns to his ordinary world with a treasure, boon, elixir to benefit his
world. (Prometheus stealing fire from
heaven, Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece.) (Campbell).
Murdock felt that the book never addressed
the heroine’s journey. It never did anything to heal the wounding of the
feminine. When in 1981 Murdock discussed this issue with Campbell he replied
thus “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition
the woman is there. They are the place that everyone is trying to get into”.
(Murdock 2). This was shocking to Murdock. Though she agreed that feminine was
the place people yearned to reach the fact was that most of the women were
separated from the feminine. Her aim was to reclaim the feminine for the women
community. The stages she divides the heroine’s journey are separation from the
feminine, Identification with the masculine and gathering of allies, Road of
trials, Finding the boon of success, Awakening to feelings of spiritual
aridity, Initiation and descent to the goddess, An urgent yearning to reconnect
with the feminine, healing the Mother/ Daughter split, healing the wounded
masculine and finally Integration of the feminine and masculine.
The father’s daughters, in their efforts
to idealize the prominent masculine culture denigrate the values of the
feminine culture. Here she rejects the positive qualities identified with the
feminine such as nurturing, emotional expressiveness, creativity, intuition
etc…In the ‘Road of Trials’ she tries to escalate the social/academic/corporate
ladder, but later feels a sense of spiritual aridity when she realises that all
the achievements had been at the cost of the soul.” Her relationship with the
inner world is estranged”. She is in a dilemma with regard to what is to be
done next. Murdock says that “When the heroine says no to the next heroic task,
there is extreme discomfort. When a
woman stops doing she must learn how to simply be. Being is not a luxury. It is
a discipline. The heroine must listen to her true inner voice. That means
silencing the other voices anxious to tell her what to do. She must be willing
to hold the tension until the new form emerges”. Then the descent into the
goddess involves attempts to rejoin the dismembered self and a longing to
reconnect with the feminine. The journey
is made up of elements of epiphany that provide her with moments of
recognition/ awareness about things that had been lying dormant within her,
waiting to erupt like a volcano. Later she tries to heal the wounds caused by
this split by rectifying the errors that she had committed (avoiding her
genuine feelings, refusing to focus on her unique experiences). The ultimate
stage is the ‘sacred marriage of the masculine and feminine” where the two
aspects of her nature are dovetailed. The newly emerged woman becomes a blend
of female consciousness and masculine consciousness.
When
you analyse the Bollywood film ‘Queen”
that was released in the year 2014 you can find the protagonist Rani Mehra
(Kangana Ranaut) deciding to leave for Europe after her Fiancee gives her a
shock treatment by confessing that he no longer wishes to marry her. Life abroad
has changed his views and he can’t accept her for her conventional attitudes.
She meets Vijayalakshmi, a woman with free values who turns to be the catalyst
for her change. This journey to Europe could be considered to be (the descent
stage) where she learns to look within herself and find a voice of her own. She
also encounters trouble with the police and also a robber who tries to snatch
away her bag. She takes a selfie wearing a modern outfit and sends it to Vijay by
mistake. This fills Vijay with a sense of compunction and he starts hunting for
her. Meanwhile she visits Amsterdam. There she shares a room with three boys
with whom she becomes thick friends. All these experiences boost her
confidence. She learns about the diversity of the world and the multiple
meanings it has to offer her. To end the
movie she rejects repeated appeals on the part of Vijay to reconsider the
relationship and says ‘no’ boldly and walks away by giving back the engagement
ring. This is essentially a slap on the face of the patriarchal world which
expects women to be a toy to act according to its whims and fancies.
Today
we find women in almost all the arenas of life, even in those fields which were
exceptionally reserved for men. It’s not the magnanimity of the task that
matters but the will and sincerity with which you do it that matters. Taking
into account the achievements of women we can say that the possibilities are
ripe for the world to witness a She-roic shift which has to be taken into
account by the patriarchal society. It is high time that men shed their ego and
represent women factually in their own right rather than adjuncts to male
enterprises.
Works
Cited
Becker,
Selwyn W. Alice. H Eagly, The Heroism of Women and Men. American Psychologist,
Vol.59, No.3, 163-178, April 2004. Web
Campbell,
Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
U.S.A: Pantheon Books, 1949. Print.
He,
Guimei, An Analysis of Sexism in India. Journal
of Language Teaching and Research, Vol.1, No.3, 332-335, 2010. Web.
Murdock,
Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey.
Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 1990. Print.
Queen. Dir. Vikas Bahl,
October 2013. Web.
No comments :
Post a Comment
We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. рдк्рд░рдХाрд╢िрдд рд░рдЪрдиा рд╕े рд╕рдо्рдмंрдзिрдд рд╢ाрд▓ीрди рд╕рдо्рд╡ाрдж рдХा рд╕्рд╡ाрдЧрдд рд╣ै।