She has always embarked on a “Calloused Crusade”. She is a Madonna, as well as a Medusa. Sometimes she is both because she is fiercely tender and fiercely fierce. She knows that Medusa transfixed domination of patriarchy . She knew Madonna was always aware that she would have to give up her Holy Babe at the manger as the Redeemer at the foot of the Cross.
This has been her dichotomy of choices and conflict. She has Free Will but she has had to wrest it from the within the barbed wire fences of ornamental lawns of patriarchal leaders. Nervous about her phoenix like resurgence and her firebird like iridescence of the spirit, history always shoved her to the wilderness and tried to fence in the garden of opinions. But history was wary of the woman with the calloused hands who stood in the periphery of the polis. Her power was a potent force . There has always been an hour of reckoning when She strode forward and rescued her soul from a soulless ornamental existence. Her calluses were from ploughing her life and her body in childbirth. From burning cooking fires as well as the oracle fires. From washing the vessels in the river as well as pouring the libations at sacred shrines.
Eve questions divine diktat because she wished to know. The forbidden fruit had already planted a few seeds in her spirit. The Serpent! He did not overwhelm Eve. If intelligence and the spirit of enquiry is defiance then Eve did defy without guilt or regret. It becomes her quest for knowledge and ironically the Fallen Angel is the lamp bearer for her when he says : "Of evil, if what is evil / Be real, why not known, since easier shunned?". [1] The Greek drama heroines like Medea, defy marginalisation in the guise of Bacchanals and stride into the polis. Antigone fears no walls save those that close the freedom of the mind. Somewhere in the evolution of drama, a revolution of choices had begun. The woman is committed to herself, be it in vengeance or in passion, and she says “I choose”!
Rosalind, Viola, Portia make life choices Debates about their roles in masculine disguise take so many informed and educated conclusions. They are practical solutions to social constraints . Shakespeare gave them the platform to express their feminist beliefs as well as their intelligence. A man is allowed to speak his mind; a woman never. So let her speak in the superficial trappings of a man. From Jane Eyre to Emma; the March Sisters to Anne of Green Gables ; all are coming of age —Bildungsroman of ‘the girl’.They grow into their glow which is never perfect. Perfection isn’t how a woman manifests. This Bildungsroman is rich in sensory as well as metaphorical imagery. Freckles, flaws, ink stained fingers, and pet peeves about physical shortcomings made these female protagonists “ flawsome”, wholesome and real.
These are not characters resigned to their sorry fates; bravely wiping tears and doing their duty in an insipid or unkind world. The pious duty soon gives way to warm empathy, sympathy and a perception of pain that made living flesh and blood women out of pallid martyrs in Morality Plays.
Jane Eyre is definitely not self- contradictory or “given to vapours” when she makes the impassioned claim: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”[2] And then she tells us with a tender finality “ Reader, I married him”.[3]. Jane is not unpredictable. She discovers herself— the only way a woman should be. Madame Bovary hurls herself into the agony and ecstasy of life as does Anna Karenina. They are foolish, deluded but they do dare. O-Lan in The Good Earth tills the land, births the baby; protects and destroys with a dogged stoicism.
Mina responds to Count Dracula’s tormented howl with guilty passion. Why? Dracula stirs a chord in her. Not of carnal fantasies only, but that of a “ kinship of independence “. Independence to explore beyond what was permitted by hypocritical morality. Miss Marple knits fluffy woolly shawls. She wraps herself in that and she comes down with vengeance on Evil. She calls herself Nemesis
Bimola in Tagore’s “Ghorey Bairey “, Labonno in his Shesher Kobita or Charulata are not women who need to be rescued. They are explorers of their own psyche. They are undaunted by desire, and they are strong enough to defy or deny them as they choose. So why do we say ‘A Woman’ is all about pathetic endurance? A woman does not need happiness as a crutch. She owns it. She has to struggle, even fight tooth and claw for happiness, and she often loses the battle. But she tries repeatedly. That is not a helpless compromise though she puts up with a lot. What is the double-edged sword that she clashes against with her steely determination? It is not always a fight with patriarchy; very often it is a crusade for herself. She is not breaking bonds to forge her armour. She doesn’t want the armour . But when needed she will axe the forest and ravage the rocks and melt the ore to create her arsenal.
She is earthy; she loves; she creates; she nurtures. She seeks, she tills; she digs; she binds; she cuts ; she make; she builds. Hence her hands are callused. These are calluses of care, casualties, cruelties and cuts. But she will caress even when calluses hurt. Like the cover of those classics: she stands — a lone figure with the wind in her hair; gale tugging at skirt. She stands a distinct silhouette against the sky and the world at her feet. Hers is a “Calloused Crusade”.
Citations
[1] Satan to Eve in Book IX, lines 697-699,Paradise Lost: John Milton
[2] Chapter xxiii page 338 : Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë
[3] Chapter XXXVIII page 520 in some versions, or page 517 in others. Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë
BIOGRAPHY
Debaleena grew up, and did her schooling from Sacred Heart Convent, and Rajendra Vidyalaya: Jamshedpur . She did her Masters and M.Phil in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and lives in Bangalore.
A writer and a homemaker she has published two books :
1 “INK-SMUDGED DREAMS: BY THE READING- LIGHT” (poems)
( 2020:- BlueRose Publishers) AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, FLIPKART & Publishers
2. “COFFEE, SMILES & TEARS: BY STARLIGHT” (short stories)
( 2022:- BlueRose) AVAILABLE ON AMAZON, FLIPKART & Publishers
3. DOODLES, SCRIBBLES & LIFE IN THE MARGIN ( 2025 :BookLeaf Publication) AVAILABLE ON AMAZON & Publishers
Debaleena is:- a co-author and editor SHE WRITERS GROUP: women writers of Indian origin. ( available AMAZON ).
A co- author in AQUALITY -TALES OF THE DEPTHS (Folio Publications-Kerala)
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