The Subaltern Move: Reading Mahasweta Devi’s “Dhowli”

Abstract

The deteriorating socio-cultural conditions have transformed the restricted definition of subordination and subalternization. Earlier, the word Slavery was used to define the dark and brutal history of blacks who had suffered from generations under the hegemonic white society. But the meaning has widened in its scope and nature in its postcolonial state where we witness an unimagined representation of postcolonial slavery and/or subalternization. The stark depiction of masculinity in feminist writings has significantly drawn the attention of feminist theorists to form different paradigms in order to understand subject-power relations in societies. Indian women writers have contributed significantly to give voice to the unseen presence of these marginalized characters within (in)visible geographical and socio-cultural spaces, but the question arises that after a scholarly reading and analysis of women writers across cultures, are we in a position to differentiate between the conditions of black, white or third-world women? Does the meaning of rape, sexual abuse, male domination or patriarchal subordination change with geographical boundaries, race and/or culture?