REASONS FOR KAMALA DAS’ SPLIT PERSONAILITY

Abstract

This paper portrays split pesona in the poems of Kamala Das aka Kamala Surayya, penned as Madhavi Kutty in Malayalam. In female poetry, split-self can be best described as a resistant woman who feels what is socially acceptable as a female gender and what is true to herself. Her poetry boldly describes Indian women and their split-self in the realm of English poems. She indulges in self-exposure, selfawareness, and self-introspection to describe her inner state as a poet. Rather than self-exposure, this poet is aimed for self-testing and self-discovery. She searches her lost presence as a poet and a woman. She clearly defined in her poetry to the family, critics and readers that she is not here to be “categorized”. Her poetry is open to everyone to discuss the topics that women had kept out (such as, the thrills of love, boredom of married life, pains of being a writer, a mother, the feeling of being in love, and the loneliness of being abandoned).

Keywords:

Kamala Das, poetry, self-split, women, poet, Indian women