Existentialist Perspective: A Study of Taslima Nasrin's Novel French Lover

Taslima Nasrin is a liberal humanist writer who struggles for freedom and continues to stand by people who face injustice in her writings. French Lover is the story of an Indian woman who in a traditional cover-up of patriarchy is submissive, conventional, and oppressive. The novel is a portrait of a woman who efforts to subvert the patriarchal traditions and come out from the shackles of stereotypical beliefs and conventionality. Nila, the protagonist, meanders her way in real life where she breaks and goes away from the mismatched marriage and rejects the experience offered by Benoir. Nila being a strong character retains her individuality against the destructive forces that challenged her existence. She faces an existential crisis when she detaches herself from her family, her husband, and her French lover. She undergoes the subsequent trauma and her successful exit from all the hurdles makes her realize that she has an existence of her own that is distinct from all others and She is free to choose and exist authentically. Danielle, the other character subjugated by her near and dear in her very early age, disowned her relations and denied conventionality where she lives via her way.

www.ijellh.com 178 Taslima Nasrin was born (1962) and brought up by Rajab Ali and Idul Ara in a small town, Mymensingh, Bangladesh. She started writing poetry at an early age of thirteen and further began writing columns in the daily newspapers and weekly magazines. After completing graduation in medical science (MBBS) from Dhaka Medical College, she turned to continuous writing. Now she has published around 35 books of poetry, essay collections, short stories, novels, and autobiographical works. Her published novels are Lajja (1994), Taslima Nasrin being a rebel, reformer, lover of freedom and liberation distrusts superstition and spiritualism and attacks them whenever she gets an opportunity to do it. She is a popularly acclaimed writer as her writings recognized throughout the world. Her appeal cuts across the boundaries of race, region, culture, and religion. She denied flatly to go with and absorbed into an orthodox, conventional system of patriarchy, where she says: "I do not believe in bowing my head before anyone or anything" (Sawhney). Communal riots broke out in Bangladesh at the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. The harrowing scenes traumatized Taslima Nasrin so vehemently that she gave expression to her shock and anguish in her novel Lajja. A fatwa (religious edict) issued against her life. The danger to the presence of a liberal writer attracted the attention of liberals all over the world.
Since then she has been living away from his native land Bangladesh in different countries like India, France, Sweden and other parts of Europe.
Nasrin is undoubtedly a feminist rebellion, a critic of irrationality and a secular humanist writer, but with a difference. Saiyeda Khatun gives the pivotal importance to heroine meanders her way in and out of all situations such as a failed affair, an indifferent marriage, a lesbian relationship, and finally, sexual satisfaction.

Meenakshi's study of "Various Manifestations of Quest for Identity in Taslima
Nasreen's Writings: A study of Lajja and French Lover" indicates a theme of the quest for identity, in these two novels, as a significant concern of the novelist and provides a better understanding of various aspects of her philosophy. In French Lover through her protagonist, Nilanjana (Nila) Nasrin explores the gender generated identity-crisis in the man-woman relationships. The characters in the novel reveal tolerance, love, and harmony, where no community or sex is superior to another, and each individual has equal rights. They struggle to live with freedom and a search for the 'self' and existence. She projects her characters persistently struggling with their conflicting selves and the environment. She has also worked on various dimensions of pressures exerted by the complex nature and demands of the society in which modern man is inflicted. Her writings relate to Rogers assertion as: "the operation of inherent forces impelling each person to want to 'become' or 'realize' himself'" (qtd. in McDavid & Harari 87).
The present study is an attempt to explore and analysis Taslima Nasrin's novel French Lover in context with existentialist philosophy and to investigate the existential perspective used by the protagonist and other characters. There is a tendency in the characters to put on efforts to take benefits of free choices and exist via their own. The present study is an attempt to explore existential perspective in the light of the characters, roles, and experience where there is the likelihood of free to choose and not to follow conventionality.
Existential philosophy emerged in the writings of Kierkegaard and Jaspers and the later contributions of Heidegger, Sartre, and others. There is no single existential philosophy; existentialism instead is more orientation towards understanding the nature and meaning of man's existence. It emphasizes that man is not a readymade machine; preferably, he has the freedom to make vital choices and to assume responsibility for his existence. It lays stress on the subjective experience as a sufficient criterion of truth. As stated by John Macquarrie and others, man exists before he acquires essence, a definite individuality. The difference is between 'being' and 'becoming.' Other things also exist, but man differs from them in that he is free to become a personality. values. They commit themselves to a cause in their effort to change society and can overcome life's complexities while weak men make vain efforts to escape from them.
The consciousness of the concept "'exist' that inspired the word 'existentialism,' was first articulated by Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche was among the first writers to expose the intimate relationship between experience, practice and the world that came to play a central role in existential philosophy" (Cooper 31). The single factor that goes on for existential thinkers is the freedom which is almost a synonym of existence. In the 20 th century Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher adopted Kierkegaard's perspective, and for him, the human action occurs within a zone of freedom. Sartre's assertion that 'existence precedes essence' means that "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world ─ and defines himself afterwards. If a man as the existentialist sees him, is not definable, it is because, to begin with, he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself" (290).
Existentialism is concerned with how individuals relate to the objective world, to other human beings and their sense of self. Recently, David Cooper argues that: "'existentialism' names a distinctive, and systematically coherent, picture of the world shared by a 'family' of thinkers" Generally, " existentialists assert the uniqueness of the human situation in the world (i.e., they reject a theoretically reductive philosophical naturalism).
This situation is characterized by ambiguity and estrangement, but also by a sense of freedom and responsibility for meaning " (qtd. in Crowell 15).
Human beings are prone to a sense of estrangement or alienation from the world.
Martin Buber presented alienation, as the main subject, in his book I and Thou that the person who lives in an 'I-It' relation to the world lives in "severance and alienation," without a home, a dwelling in the Universe (58). The 'I' used for 'self', conveys a meaning that is deeply personal, subjective and familiar while the 'It' is foreign and unknown, hence an alien presence. This estrangement is responsible for arousing the notion of existence and makes the name existentialism an appropriate one. Kierkegaard restricts the term "`existence" to individual human beings where they are "infinitely interested in existing" and "constantly in the process of becoming" (253). For Macquarrie, existence means, "Man fulfils his being precisely by existing, by standing out as the unique individual that he is and stubbornly refusing to be absorbed into a system" (66). In its root sense existence means 'standing out' or going beyond what he is in that moment or moulds one's life accordingly. Kierkegaard, in his works, calls the individual to come out from the crowd and bear the burden of his being upon himself. One should not seek help from theories and principles or the illusion of conventionality because the existence of each existent is 'distinct' and 'unique' from the existence of everyone else. The other more important aspect of existence is self-relatedness -means the individual is the centre of everything, and he has to evolve his value system. It does not remain fixed or static; it keeps on changing with time.
For existentialists "we have to start from freedom if we are to understand man'' (Roubiczek 122). Freedom means acting entirely by our own free will. For Sartre "freedom and existence are indistinguishable. One does not first exist and then become free; rather, to be human is already to be free" (qtd. in Macquarrie 177). Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Jespers call the term 'the public 'the herd' and 'mass existence' respectively that works autocratically and becomes a barrier to inhibit freedom. Existentialists believe that individuals do not get or leave a well-structured universe with a coherent design. In their dealing with freedom, people are responsible for their choices, life plans, and their world. The inescapable reality of death gives meaning to existence. It is also the source of existential or normal anxiety.
Existentialists sometimes seem preoccupied with death. It is in facing death that an individual is most likely to come to an understanding of life. Frankl sees "death not as a threat but as urging for individuals to live their lives fully and to take advantage of each opportunity to do Nasrin, in her writing, focuses on the inhumane practices held in the society in general, and the enslavement of woman by the patriarchal system in particular. French Lover is a novel in which she goes to the extent to break off marital and extramarital relations with the man altogether as a means of woman liberation from the subjugation of patriarchy. Nila is on a search for love and independence to discover her 'self' at abroad in a strange city far away from home. However, the quench cannot be described as satisfied but the protagonist efforts to grow in and out to overcome all situations aroused by her marital and extramarital relations.
The institution of marriage, with all its expectations, falls slowly on a woman. Nasrin is not only writing about her female protagonists Nila, who is a victim of the institution of marriage and existential crisis but through Nila, also about other women who are subjugated and enslaved. Taslima Nasrin's French Lover is the story of Nilanjana (Nila) a middle-class young Bengali girl from Kolkata who is in search of freedom, independence, and existence where she faces patriarchal control exerted on her by her father, friend, husband, and lover.
She is freedom lover, energetic, and a distinctive individual who rejects whatever is crude, vulgar, and conventional. The present search focuses on the failure of premarital love where the traditions of patriarchy work as a barrier failure of marriage at which Nila gets frustration through the shabby treatment by Kishanlal, her husband and for liberation she subsequently abandons her husband.
Nila is a Bengali beauty, well educated, full of imagination with a desire to teach in a College or University. She is romantic at heart and a dreamer, wherein her first love with Sushanta, she assumes to be "a simple household" to live with minimum resources at which "they'd love each other in the dim light of the lamp in the room and laugh at the materialistic her freedom and autonomy. Kishan's luxurious apartment, presented in the blurb at the back of the book, appears to Nilanjana as "a gilded cage, and she feels stifled within its friendless confines. Her marriage, where she functions as little more than a housekeeper and a sex object, is far from fulfilling--and Nilanjana looks desperately for a way out of the boredom and depression that threaten to engulf her life" (Back). Nila gets suffocation for her mechanized and repetitive work schedule of a housewife. Freedom of Paris gives strength to Nila where she expresses her desire in discussion with Kishan and says: "'Yes you're alive, but I don't just want to live. I need more.' 'What do you need?' Nila looked him in the eye, spoke softly and calmly, 'You're talking of bread, but that isn't all. One needs the lily as well'" (71). Kishan has failed to fulfil Nila's expectations. She gets a job of packing computers in boxes where she wants to use her potential to express her inherent urge compelling her to want to 'become' or 'realize' herself. Kishan fails to understand this natural urge for independence through earning her own money with a job.
Nila steps out of the house to explore the city streets on her own. It is her job that not merely makes money, but she also gets from it the opportunity to interact with the other he does is to please himself. Now on an alien land, social and cultural pressure loses and Nila is free from conventionality. Sexual relations also have no meaning as her chastity has violated time and again. Nila's crises go its worst when her French lover, Benoir goes to attempt her murder. At this stage, she decides to terminate her pregnancy and to be free all of the restraints. Nasrin expresses Nila's liberty as: "One, she took in deep breaths in the pure air. She stood at the window and looked out at the greens, reds, and yellow of nature, at the festival of flowers beneath the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds. Nila had never seen such pretty autumn before, had never seen nature in such gorgeous costumes" (291). In her search, in the end, she "stands alone in a strange country-penniless, friendless, and jobless.
However, her instinct for survival that had always seen her through-is intact even now. She again makes plans to begin life afresh . . ." (Shalini R. Sinha 184).The decision of Nila to break and go away from the patriarchal mismatched marriage and her denial to accept the life offered by the French lover, Benoir leads her to the discovery of the self where she rejects conventionality and exists authentically.
Taslima Nasrin's heroine Nila rarely submits to her contenders, she revolts against patriarchy and affirms her significance in the best possible way. She asserts herself in the matter of sexuality and economic freedom. The characters in the novel challenge the ritualistic, dogmatic, and patriarchal practices in different ways and succeed in realizing their dreams of leading a dignified, meaningful and autonomous life and existence. Nila continuously faces the anxiety of nonexistence. She feels lonely, detached and experience alienation on both native as well as on foreign land; this is due to the anxiety of nonexistence.
Humans have an inherent capacity to grow and develop; they can change, make choices, and determine their own destinies. Nila assimilates herself in a new culture, on foreign land, only after leaving the older world and the nostalgia associated with it.