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The IUP Journal of English Studies :
The Sufferings of a Subaltern Mother: A Comprehensive Study of Baburao Bagul’s Short Story “Mother”
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Generally, subaltern literature is related to colonizer-colonized framework within a society. In this research paper, the author wishes to put forward some ideas regarding the cultural, social and economic spheres of the society and the subalternity of the Dalit women in it. The Dalits are marginalized and when one is talking about the Dalit woman, she becomes more than thrice marginalized as we believe in patriarchy and our rules are such that they do not give any kind of liberty to a woman. Here, a woman is depicted with a new point of view of being subaltern as she is Dalit and a widow, and moreover, she is a single parent. The author wishes to take interest in the character of a mother who is a wholesome nourishment to the son who, at last, accepts the rumors about his mother being a ‘slut’. Why cannot our patriarchal society accept a mother being alone and still pure in her relationships? If she has relation with someone after being a widow, why cannot she marry a person of her choice? Why do males have wrong ‘concepts’ about a widow but cannot accept her being with someone else?

 
 
 

According to Arjun Dangle, “Dalit literature is not simply literature … Dalit literature is associated with a movement to bring about change … At the very first glance, it will be strongly evident that there is no established critical theory or point of view behind them [i.e., Dalit writings]; instead, there is new thinking and a new point of view.” (Dangle, 1994, pp. vii-viii).

This discussion is related to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s now-famous question, “Can the subaltern speak?” Spivak focused on the question with reference to the colonizercolonized framework within which much of the theorizing about post-coloniality and subalternity originating from Indian and a metropolitan intellectual circle has taken place.

 
 
 

English Studies Journal, The Sufferings, Subaltern Mother, A Comprehensive Study, Bagul’s Short Story “Mother”.