LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:1 January 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Dilemma and Misrepresentation of Women:
A Study of Manjula Padmanabhan’s Lights Out

Aditi Hooda, Research Scholar

Abstract

The aim of my paper is to depict the dilemma of women characters in the play, Lights Out written by noted playwright Manjula Padmanabhan. It is a thought provoking work, and the story is set in a land almost insensitive and cold of women’s, pain, and agonies. Padmanabhan has placed almost all of her works in dystopian lands and the reality has been re-shaped. It offers a sensitive character study of the woman characters. It is a play having a tragic setting where a rape is going on the background and how the men are trying to have a justification for it. Since women have no place in the land created by the playwright the play depicts a very heinous side of the male society where there is no place for the women’s conscience and sensibility. Here Padmanabhan deftly portrays a pack-rape along with the communal apathy that is often met with, even if there are people within reach to be able to come to the rescue of the victim. Manjula, a feminist, voices her concern about the fate of women in a society where the educated, resourceful, and conscious elite class remains a mute spectator and an indifferent partner in the crimes committed on women. The play is a metaphor to show that the women’s position have been reduced to a no one. They have to struggle to have their voice back, to have an existence of their own. It is a sincere effort to show the dilemma of the women presented in a modern day scenario.

Keywords: Manjula Padmanabhan, Lights Out, Dystopian, dilemma of women, agony, heinous

Women’s liberation or the awakening of the individual and collective consciousness of women has undoubtedly been one of the greatest developments of the last century and as such this opened up a whole new world of women in the literary realm that went on to unfold the angry outburst after an age long of silence and suppression, out of the adverse condition that the woman kind have ever been subject to.

The last few decades have shown women situating themselves between the extremes of servitude and the urge for freedom of expression and activism. Women in this world especially in Indian society lose out only by being women. The social integration is such as to incline them towards the so-called natural vocation of women i.e. to be a wife and a mother. Subordination or acceptance of male authority, whether of father, husband, or son, is a cherished Indian value sanctified by tradition. Their choices and potentials are so often thwarted by the societies of which they are integral part. The enclosed space indicating a woman’s lot in the traditional Indian set-up is in response towards the Sita/Savitri prototype or rather the ideas and beliefs provided by Manusmriti. As Anees Jung opines, “I had not known then that silence could be a language through which women in this land realized themselves, I owe that legacy to my mother, a legacy which I am just beginning to unravel and understand” (Jung, 1987:20).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Aditi Hooda, Research Scholar
Baba Mastnath University, Rohtak
Asthal Bohar, Sector-29, Rohtak, Haryana 124021, India
hoodaditi@gmail.com
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