WORDS AS WEAPONS: A FEMINIST STYLISTICS ANALYSIS OF KAMALA DAS’ SELECTED POEMS

Abstract

The study of linguistic sexism or gender discriminations is effective in eliminating the stereotypic images out of the mind of the individual; and, hence, the study of sexism in language is worthwhile. This paper aims at determining whether the language employed in characterizing the men and the women who appear in the poem Kamala has employed is biased or not. It also carried out its research on the basis of the toolkits of feminist stylistics as given by Sara Mills. The language of and with the aid of the Purposive sampling method of a qualitative research, the personal experience of the main characters of the novel will be analyzed.

At sentence/phrase level, there are nine (09) poems of Kamala in the discourse level. It could come up with the results that men are also represented poorly besides women, however women are being stated in a more demeaning and derogatory manner than men. The women are paraded as women who are locked in and caged up in their rooms and homes as housewives. They are given their role to play so that they can take care of their husbands who are their passive cooks and sex objects. Besides that, they are also depicted on their beds engaging in love making with their male partners in their embrace. The men on the other hand play the role of the husband who tames and dominates the woman. Either they are portrayed as spinning the webs to ensnare the woman or they are fiddling with the body organs of their lovers as woman.