In my materialist feminist analysis of Bangladeshi literature, I will address three Bangladeshi novels: Janani (serialized in 1945 and published in 1961) by Shawkat Osman, Shurja Dighal Baree (1955) by Abu Ishaq, Nirbashita (1990) by Syed Shamsul Haque, as well as a contemporary play Kokilara (1990) written by Abdullah Al-Mamun.

My study will be situated within the framework of the sociopolitical and ideological structure of Bangladesh and the customs and beliefs of the rural people involving a scrutiny into the"patriarchal bargain" which empowers the man, and deprives the woman. Within the context of such a bargain, I will explore through literature, some of the terms and conditions of the compulsory"patriarchal contract" that women have to enter across classes, as well as in the different contexts of rural and urban lives. The chief focus of my study in Bangladeshi literature will be the exploitation of female body in the context of widowhood, marriage, child marriage and so on, as it relates to the subaltern (non-elite, and the disadvantaged) woman in the village and the middle class woman in the city.

I have deliberately chosen female body as my focus, to challenge and subvert purdah as a practice and an ideology which permeates the primary texts of my focus in one form or another. By such an approach, I want to bring to light woman in her materiality. I would like to"wrench" her out of the patriarchal context of home (where she is protected (?) and is perpetually in need of protection), into visibility so that she can be seen in material terms and not in moral and/or residual terms. In terms of purdah, such an approach in itself constitutes an important challenge to the dominant order of patriarchy (a defiance of the norm). Purdah, in my argument, is not just a piece of veil but an internalized code of behavior, the code of do's and don't's that women at all levels have to internalize. A woman can be in purdah without wearing a veil; purdah can be an internalized value-system.

To switch my focus to the text, the setting of the first novel of my inquiry-Janani , is the tragic famine in Bengal in 1943 which was the result of the fall of Burma (who supplied rice to Bengal) to Japan in World War II, and the"scorched earth policy" of the British government. In the beginning of this novel, Dariabibi the central female character in the book is already into her second marriage to seek protection from her widowhood. Materially, she is devastated as a result of her widowhood. Her second husband is a poor peasant with very little land. Janani is about Daria's gradual impoverishment and the exploitation of her female body by Yakub, the rising rural entrepreneur and a distant relative, who takes advantage of her vulnerability. To save herself from"shame and dishonor" in a patriarchal society, Daria secretly delivers her own illegitimate baby and then kills herself with a rope--thus becoming mother, midwife, executioner all in one.

With her first widowhood, not only does Daria lose her protector/husband (I'm here talking about her first husband), she also finds herself, after her father-in-law dies, disinherited from any rights to the property of her husband, as well as from any rights to her own son. According to Shariat law (Muslim personal law governing marriage/inheritance which the British colonialists helped upholding because it agreed with their colonial impulse), Daria has to forfeit all claims to her late husband's property since her husband died before the death of her father-in-law. (The brothers of her late husband are entitled to her share as well as the custody of her son.)

In her second marriage, Daria though much poorer (a widow is a devalued currency, hence her second husband is to be poorer), is prohibited by purdah from accessing any economic resources. She cannot work in the field; she cannot raise livestock. Moreover, as hunger and poverty permanently take her over, she becomes a widow again. Being a woman in purdah without any male protector or bread winner (her son from the second marriage is very young), she inhabits a position of utter vulnerability.

Her female body becomes a pawn in the hands of Yakub who volunteers money relieving her of her economic distress, but inscribes on her body the seal of his patriarchal bargain by raping her in exchange. The Bengali word Janani means mother. It is an irony that gender violence is the author of this motherhood which breeds more violence in the form of suicide. Behind the veil, and the"honor" the society so values, is a female body hanging from a roof, because behind the veil, a male protector turns into a predator.

The appropriation of the female body in Janani becomes a complex theme in its focus on the minor character of a subaltern woman - Hashu bou. In her case, it is not illegitimate pregnancy, but no pregnancy at all that becomes a site of her struggle. If the female body is for reproduction, what happens to a Hashu who cannot reproduce (although we will never know since it is a taboo question, if it is her husband who should be blamed). In Janani, a woman who cannot fulfill patriarchy's expectations, is an anomaly.

It is both tragic and ironic that Hashu bou takes to performing pregnancy without a foetus in her womb. She constructs a pregnancy with all the ragged pieces of cloth that she accumulates by stealing from children. It is her way of legitimizing her position through"illegitimate" means and for the duration that she can control. She continues this blissful moment beyond the terms of pregnancy into 11 months--yet, when her fictional pregnancy is taken apart by pulling her saree, she not only loses consciousness, but also the power she temporarily appropriated for herself.

The theme of the female body and its control and regulation by patriarchy continues in Shurja Dighal Baree (1955). Although written later than Janani by Osman, the setting of Ishaq's story is also the famine of 1943. The historical movement of the birth of Pakistan in 1947 intersects the story of Joygoon's (the subaltern woman ) life in Shurja Dighal Baree. Joygoon's poverty is more extreme than Daria's, and driven by need, she transgresses purdah that Daria didn't. Joygoon's body becomes a site of contest, challenge, and surveillance by the rural elite who become the arbiters of Joygoon's fate (the rural elites are vested with power by the urban elite).

As Pakistan becomes an independent country, Joygoon (already a widow and a divorcee from her two marriages) moves into the"haunted house" of her parental property, but not without signing the contract of patriarchal bargain (as the following discussion will explain), a bargain which ensures the gradual loss of her livelihood and her right to freedom and ultimately the right to her own hut.

Her female body undergoes surveillance both by the religious code of purdah which gains further reinforcement backed by the folk beliefs in ghost and goblins in which Joygoon also participates, and the village chief Gedu Pradhan who is both the institutional power and the manipulator of ghost and goblins having the ultimate control over Joygoon's life.

In the beginning of the book, to protect herself, Joygoon enters into a bargain with Jobed Ali Fakir who implants into the four corners of the"haunted" house four"Tabiz(es)" (a term meaning a sacred hand- written copy of relevant sections of the Quran for specific purposes, done by a religious authority, folded into the size of a pendant with a metallic covering) to protect her, thereby colonizing Joygoon through her own consent. Moreover, the terms of the bargain require that this"Tabizicization" be renewed each year (because time wears out its power). In return, the Fakir's share of the bargain is not only of goods and money, but a right to Joygoon's body. However, Joygoon's resistance succeeds over Fakir's invasive attempts.

Joygoon's first husband was a member of the clergy, or a Munshi. Hence her transgression in earning her livelihood by working in other people's houses for processing paddy is more outrageous to the ruling elite of the village. Moreover, Joygoon is an entrepreneur; she takes the train in utter defiance of the patriarchal prohibition and buys rice from the northern part of the country, (where rice is cheap), and establishes a relationship with the market. To put it in theoretical terms, Joygoon enacts"performative contradiction." A woman has to perform a role of submission, of vulnerability and dependence. Here Joygoon enacts a contrary role and contradicts the mode that has been prescribed.

Her defiance has another dimension. To reform her character, Pradhan wants to control her more directly by making her into his fourth wife so that she can have purdah and rice as well as gold jewelry to deck her body with. Joygoon refuses such a favor, and chooses to be on her own.

Joygoon is threatened to be ostracized by the religious and political power of the locality. Her"guilt" for non-observance of purdah is determined by Pradhan and others, and she is enforced into purdah. Thus her relationship to her livelihood is severed by patriarchy. In the meantime, her daughter Mymoon, the child-bride, whom she could not support, is returned to her as a bad currency. Mymoon comes back on foot, alone, with a tattered saree, divorce (which does not take place formally, but is very well -implied by her forced return to her natal family) inscribed on her child body. Her"guilt" is her inability to enter into the sexual division of labor required of her. It's a bad investment for her husband and his kin to feed her. The"waiting period" for a child-bride to be profitable is too long. Moreover, there is no cost on the part of her husband to replace her with a better wife. (It is interesting that although child marriage was prohibited according to law, the marriage itself was considered valid. Who wants to interfere with a valid marriage on behalf of a poor girl?)

When Mymoon comes back, Joygoon is already driven to starvation by her inability to provide for herself behind the veil. She finally comes out of purdah, but the ghosts and goblins of the"haunted house," controlled and manipulated by Pradhan are suddenly very outraged. Night after night showers of bricks and stones drive Joygoon out of her last shelter to nowhere.

It is an irony that she cuts out a part of her first wedding saree as a flag to celebrate the birth of Pakistan in 1947. The correspondence between her dead husband's ideology and the ideology of Pradhan/Pakistan is very neat. With her dead husband, she might have tried to bury the veil, but part of her wedding saree is also the flag of the new country. Hence her body is bound by the prohibitive structure of the same ideology.

Written three decades later in an industrialized and urban setting, Nirbashita (meaning the banished) by Shamsul Haque takes place in the capital city of Dhaka. Although the female body has different configurations in this novel, it is still the object of male control and male lust.

Ruby Jafar, the central character, enters into the world of capitalism as she becomes a model for a shampoo ad for a company. The story is not about Ruby as an ad star, but about her reminiscence to a narrator/journalist of the story of her banishment from her rising career. She is banished from the world of advertisement as a result of the horrible disfigurement of her face, caused by acid thrown at her by a member of the political leadership, who exacted revenge on her, for once in her past, resisting his rapist desire. Nirbashita is a story of male appropriation and revenge.

The ghost and goblins of Shurja Dighal Baree have undergone chemical transformation in Nirbashita. Also transformed is the female (although we have to remember that Ruby is of a different class that Joygoon or Daria) who is now more resistant and articulate than her predecessors.

In spite of patriarchy's attempt to banish her from the public world into invisibility, Ruby refuses to disappear. On the contrary, her"aberrant" presence can be felt everywhere, especially"in the busiest part of the city at the busiest time". The narrator comments in disbelief: "even though she is a woman, there is no bashfulness . . . she doesn't yield her way to anyone [a female should yield her right of way to man] . . . and on a holy Friday,...outside the main gate of a mosque appears the imposing figure of a woman (17). In Ruby, we see the resistant, defiant woman who cannot be contained. Ruby in her disfigurement remains a walking figure refusing to be erased. The banished cannot be banished after all.

The theme of gender violence is also the key issue in Abdullah Al-Mamun's Kokilara , a play in three Acts, each focusing on a woman--a "kokila." The title itself is important. The Bengali word "kokila" means a female bird known for the song-like quality of its voice. The bird is also considered a harbinger of spring and romance. The kokilas of this play are fragile as the spring bird, but they do not sing; they cry in anguish; they try to protest in pain, but all in vain. The kokila of act 111, assumes the role of a lawyer and an advocate for the victims of acts 1 and 11, and in an imaginary trial asks the judge/audience to pass judgment on the two perpetrators of gender violence in the play, but the (imagined) judge scornfully rejects her plea, and gives his verdict"not guilty."

In the first act of the play, the kokila is a very young girl from the village, working as a maid in a bourgeois household. To finish her domestic chores she has to work ceaselessly and be at the beck and call of every one. She is placed in a feudal relationship with that family, and feels some kind of bond and obligation to remain in her service with that family. However, one day, she is raped by one of the relatives of this family who is a young man belonging to the socialist group but fluent in religious rhetoric, and also promises at the moment of rape that he lives for the poor (and that is why he has a passion for the body of a servant), and that the omniscient God is aware that he and the poor kokila are married in their hearts. He promises to validate the marriage after the fulfillment of his desire.

Instead of keeping his promise that he will legally marry her, he disappears from the country on scholarship. Kokila, pregnant with an illegitimate child, loses her "ijjat" and the protection of the employer family, (who now refuses to lodge her), and kills herself, articulating her last hope that in the after world, the father of the child will not be able to disown his own child.

In act 11, the kokila described as"an educated but devoted wife", gets divorced, beaten and evicted by her successful businessman-husband after twenty-five years of marriage, because he has brought a new wife to replace her. The wife begs and pleads at least for the right to stay as one of his wives--to have a vestige of honor as his wife; however, her voice is stifled through beating and she faints on the stage.

Kokilara insistently points out the exploitative structure of a patriarchal society by showing how within the patriarchal economy, the religious, social and legal systems collude with one another in subjugating women. Yet a closer scrutiny of the play suggests some ambivalence in its approach to the patriarchal ideology. For example, the third kokila, in her argument, sometimes seems to participate in the very ideology that she so strongly tries to challenge. In order to evoke sympathy, the lawyer-kokila informs us that the second kokila in spite of the brutality of her husband, in her prayer, (the woman's image of praying to God is evoked), asked God's forgiveness for her husband. She even argues that the second kokila's husband at least could have given her a choice to stay as his second wife. Second kokila herself asked for such a favor in act 11. Such an approach may negate some of the challenges posed in the play.

In light of the above analysis, I will conclude my essay by raising the following questions:
a. How does the twenty percent of the total population of Bangladesh who write, publish and consume literature, represent the eighty percent of the population who are illiterate and incapable of engaging in any dialogue? Is there a"structure of violence in representation?"
b. Is literary discourse a renewal of the"patriarchal bargain" or a contestation and challenge?
c. What is the relationship in life and literature between the intellectual who represents and the muted who is represented, and how does literature as a discourse negotiate the woman question within the network of legal, social and political discourses and practices of Bangladesh?