Silence and Poetic Sensibility: A Mode of Transformation in the Poetry of Kamala Das and Momila Joshi

Abstract

Silence is in itself a very profound, psychological and grave characteristic that a writer transfers to his or her characters in order to protest the intolerable atmosphere of the social condition and its disturbing issues that creates predicament in the inner and outer development of the portrayed character. It is unsaid emotion, absence of voice that keep repressed in the unconscious mind but when it explodes brings about tremendous transformation in the self or the social construction. This paper is an attempt to focus the becoming of an icon in field of poetic world of different nations- India and Nepal. Kamala Das and Mormile Joshi employed this style in their poetry, but the former seems stronger than latter in use of it. Silence can be a powerful and rebellious. It is a form of resistance, oppression, and a mental attitude to consider someone as other that draws many critical perspectives. Simon de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Michael Foucault and other critics as well opined on various ways a woman is subjugated and how this silence is manipulated in the patriarchal framework. Language is the most essential tool for communication and an inseparable organ of literature but the silence that results from want of words and language creates a sense of estrangement in the characters.  The poet or writer resorts various poetic devices or say literary devices: pause, ellipsis, gaps, to expose unexpressed emotions and unuttered fluttering voice that a character as a human yearns for sharing.