Feminine Archetypes in the School Stories of Women Writers : A Study of Sukhalata Rao and Ashalata Singha/ লেখিকাদের স্কুলকেন্দ্রিক গল্পের মেয়েলি ছাঁচ : সুখলতা রাও এবং আশালতা সিংহ

Abstract

If we look at the stories written for children and teenagers in Bengali, we can understand that most of them are somehow related to school. In Bengali, we can call such stories ‘Schooler Galpo’. The experiences that the storytellers have while observing the familiar environment are expressed through their creative works, brightened by the light of their own understanding and consciousness; but within the environment lies the rhetoric of power. As a result, the voice of women is suppressed next to the dominant patriarchal accent. In practice, the language of protest creates a language that is actually just a counter-narrative. But the women writer’s language is also trapped in the patriarchal narrative. We have to find the own voice of women’s personal space. We have tried to understand the feminine mold of school stories from the stories written by Sukhalata Rao and Ashalata Singha. Just as ‘Barnaparichay’ of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar not only introduces children to the alphabet, but also makes the duties and non-duties of life clear, similarly, Kamini Sundari Devi’s ‘Bamabodhika’ mainly taught morals along with alphabetical lesson to girls. The timid, fearful, and gawky women shown in ‘Bamabodhika’ became the ideals for the main characters of women writers of later period. Even a review of school stories will show the dichotomous division of boy’s and girls’ food habits, clothing, language, habits, thoughts, and cognitions. The language and behaviour of the female characters created by the two writers are different from the male characters they wrote. For example, the life style of Ranu in Sukhalata Rao’s story ‘Bhalo Pari O Mondo Pari’ is different from the male characters namely ‘Buddhiman’, ‘Bittoban’, and ‘Chittotosh’ in the same writer’s story ‘Tin Bandhu’. Although, in Ashalata Singha’s story ‘Chhera Moja’, Mini is the best student in class, the author has perfected her by transforming into the perfect wife of a man who returned from England. Although, there is a hint of the author’s own voice in the story at some places. In the content of the story ‘Subodhini’, author Ashalata has shown her uniqueness. It is not a school story, but the story of entering into school is important for girls in colonial India, Ashalata has made it understand. The language style and narration of the women authors are also different.