The Doubt
by
Kamala Das
(Summary)
Kamala Das was the poetess of human body. The
theme which occurs in most of her poems is the theme of common relationship.
Her poems are full of images and symbols of love and lust. Her poems are known
for their frankness and sincerity. She is also known as a ‘confessional poet’.
The poetess expresses her feelings of love–making through a doubt. Her doubt is that whether a man is really a man or a woman; or whether a woman is really a woman or a man. She tries to find the answer of her doubt herself in the poem and says that we call a corpse ‘it’ and not ‘she’ or ‘he’. According to her,
only the souls have sex and not the bodies; because the souls are invisible,
sex should also be invisible. She finds that her doubt is still not clear. She
still cannot tell which man is a man or which woman is a woman by seeing their
bodies. According to the poetess ‘the sex accessories’ give no indication of
‘he’ or ‘she’.
Kamala
Das again puts forth a question that whether a man is a female who after ‘the
game’ smooths the bed-sheet and removes the twisted hair from the pillows. She
satires the feminine qualities of a male and the masculine qualities of a
female. She doubts at what they do in a closed room during the act of love
making. According to her, the female might be playing the role of a male and
‘he’ of female –
Is
she
A
male, who with his frail hands
Clasps
me to her breasts
The
poetess is known for her frankness and she very frankly confesses what has been
done behind the closed doors. She says that after ‘the act of intercourse’, one
of the partners tidy up the whole scene of the room. He washes the blood marks
under the tap of water and buries the instrument, ‘the knife’. She does not
know what to do and she moves here and there to recover herself from the stabs.
She moves here and there because she does not know how to react/respond to this
act of love. She also does not know what she gains from this game of sex.
Kamala
Das is a confessional poetess and she does express that thing frankly which is
generally not talked about or expressed by others openly.
A
Compendious History of English Literature by R.D. Trivedi (Author)
The poem is written in free verse form having no regular rhyming or rhythm pattern. The language of the poem is simple and prosaic. There is a strong autobiographical touch in this poem. In this poem we find a feminine longing – a longing to have an emotional fulfillment through ‘the game of sex’. She shows a poetical mastery of phrase and control over rhythm. The words: ‘sex accessories’, ‘the knife’ and ‘stabs’ are figurative and suggestive.
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