#english4

"Seeing is believing, but is it truth?"

—Thaddeus Bradley, Now You See Me

Eyes by Indian playwright K.T. Mohammed is a story about an ugly widower named Abdulla and his marriage with his late blind wife, Leela. In this story, Mohammed shows the state of relationships at the time and how patriarchal norms reduce women to objects of male desire, denying women their freedoms and individuality in order to conform to the patriarchy, ultimately exploiting them.

It's All About the Man

Notice how the characters fulfill their gender roles in the story. Indian marriage norms and pressures are very emphasized early on in the story. Abdulla's mother asks,

"Son, mustn't you bring home a bride?"

He tries and fails, even with his mother's intervention. When he finally did meet and propose to Leela, everyone laughed at them at the altar, and society still mocked them for being different in terms of physical characteristics and religious differences. The story is also written in such a way that it focuses entirely on Abdulla's thought processes and narration, with no insight into how Leela thinks and truly feels, only mentioning things from his perspective. Leela's perspective is denied from us, because in the story, it's all about the man and what he thinks.

Wanting Her So Bad

Another thing to note is that physical details about people in the story can go on at length. Being a story titled Eyes, it makes sense, but Abdulla's descriptions and interactions of the supposed love of his life are, to put it lightly, lustful. In the narration, he says:

She was not good-looking, but her well-proportioned body had the charm of youth.

This suggests he loves her primarily for her body, rather than other, deeper reasons. The lack of elaboration about his love for Leela, putting aside physical attraction, reflects the male-centric society K.T. Mohammed wishes to describe to the readers.

His To Use and Abuse

It's apparent that women in the story are seen as little more than sources of pleasure and outlets for lust. As Leela deliberates with Abdulla about getting married, she reveals that she lost her virginity by being raped in an alley. She says to him,

"I have no untainted womanhood to offer you. [...] I had to yield to creatures of lust approaching through the horror of night.”

This is the most raw piece of evidence in the text that suggests women's humanity is seen as less-than men in this story and the time it was written in at large. All that mattered about being a woman was being "pure" and "a good wife", however society defines what that means.

Conclusion

Our world is constantly changing; it's not the same as it was yesterday, not the same as it was last week, and nowhere near the same as it was 200 years ago, a time when men and women were crushed by imposed gender expectations. A woman had to be a submissive wife who does housework and be innocent and pure, while a man strong to keep his family safe and able to provide for them alone (Appell, n.d). 

But “Two Words”, a story published in 1989 by Latin American author Isabel Allende, shows how gender expectations have changed since those times; in the past decades, people have been able to slowly accept the idea that we are not confined to these roles.

To show how "Two Words" conveys this idea, let’s talk about two of its characters: Belisa and the Colonel

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Belisa

Child Belisa. Emaze.(n.d.).taken from https://www.emaze.com/@aiiczqcw/Two-Words-(Feminist-Criticism)

Belisa, the female lead, steers far away from stereotypical female expectations, reflecting the significant progress feminism made in Latin America by the 1980s. 

For a point of comparison, let’s talk Pride and Prejudice (P&P). In P&P, marriage is a woman's ultimate goal and the only way for her to have a secure future, meaning a woman could never be independent. A woman couldn’t even own property during the time P&P was set. (Austen,2003)

But times have changed, Belisa’s not confined to that goal. She’s more independent, and this is established as early as the first sentence when it’s explained that her family was too poor to name their children, which means “Belisa Crepusculario” wasn’t something given to her, but something she worked for. Starting from her name, she had to work hard for everything she had: her skills and her business. Belisa is also nowhere near submissive (see page 3, where she gets manhandled and “demanded to know the reason for such rough treatment”) nor is she portrayed as completely “pure” (see page 4, where she suddenly wants to “fondle” the Colonel).

So yeah, Belisa was pretty far from a “traditional woman”.

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The Colonel

The Colonel. Craiyon. (n.d.). taken from https://www.craiyon.com/image/uwTEnbLwRL6dGDmKa1PjCA

The Colonel embodies the flexibility that’s been integrated into gender roles. 

One could argue that the Colonel was just another traditional man, though. He was someone people saw as strong, someone who led and was always at the head, and these were traits expected of a traditional man.

But that wasn’t all that the Colonel was. 

For example: “....the whole world could see the voracious-puma eyes soften as the woman walked to him and took his hand in hers” (Allende, 1989, p. 7)

While it's subtle, this quote portrays a submissive, emotional side to the Colonel, contrasting the victorian/traditional “dominant, stoic, manly man” idea. (Man up – the Victorian Origins of Toxic Masculinity, 2017)

And that’s the thing. Anyone, male or female, should be able to choose what roles they want to fill regardless of who traditionally held those roles and expectations. They aren't trapped just because they chose a “traditional role”, and this idea is perfectly portrayed by the Colonel. 

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"Two Words'' is a story with feminism far from its main focus, but that's what makes it great to analyze from this perspective. From stories like these that don't focus on feminism, we get to see what authors consciously and subconsciously expect of different genders. While one author doesn't reflect the thoughts of society as a whole, the works that an author leaves behind still serve as proof that the ideas they had existed, and sometimes, that's enough proof to believe that our world changed, hopefully for the better.

Allende, I. (1989). Two Words. https://lah.elearningontario.ca/CMS/public/exported_courses/ENG1D/exported/ENG1DU06/ENG1DU06/ENG1DU06A03/_teacher/two-words.pdf

Appell, F. (n.d.). Victorian Ideals: The influence of society’s ideals on Victorian relationships. Retrieved June 2, 2024, from https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue18/appell.htm

Austen, J. (2003). Pride and Prejudice (V. Jones, Ed.). Penguin Classics.