Introduction to the Poem:
The poem entitled Dance of the Eunuchs is a beautiful and well - organised poem. It is a descriptive poem. It is the very first poem in Kamala Das’ first volume of poems entitled “Summer in Calcutta”, published in 1965. It presents pathetic and miserable condition of the eunuchs. In the poem, the eunuch has been regarded as a symbol of unproductiveness. The eunuch is incapable of performing the sexual act and, therefore, of producing the child. The poem is an expression of Kamala Das’ feeling of frustration in love. She seems here to be giving an outlet to her feeling of the futility of all her sexual experiences because all those experiences had failed to satisfy her emotional demands. The poetess sympathises with the dancing eunuchs who belong to neither sex and thus, suffer a peculiar irony of fate. They dance ecstatically. They seem to be completely merged with their dance which actually reveals their inner barrenness and voidness.
 |
| Poem, Dance of the Eunuchs, Summary and Critical Appreciation |
Summary of the Poem:
The poetess recalled an extremely hot noon of summer when the eunuchs came to dance. In such an extreme weather of summer when the scorching heat of sun was unendurable for every creature, they showed great excitement in their dance. The excitement of their dance was equal to the extremity of weather. While dancing, they had great enthusiasm. They wore wide skirts. The eunuchs sang and danced. When they danced, their skirts went round and round. Some of the eunuchs had cymbals and drums. They were playing with these instruments with great skill. Their musical instruments were producing great noise, but the rhythm of their instrument was not harsh, it was extently mild and sweet. They had anklets in their feet. The small balls of metal hanging to their chains which they wore in their feet produced tinkling sound. When they danced with great movement, the tinkling sound could be heard loudly. The loud sound of the tinkling emphasised their excitement and passion for dancing. All the eunuchs took shelter under the tree of Gulmohar which was laden with red flowers. The red colour of the flowers symbolised the intensity of heat and the excitement of the eunuchs. They had long braids. When they took round turn during their dance, their braids flew. Their eyes were dark. When they danced, they blinked their eyes to express the song which they sang. They were barefooted and they danced on the rough ground covered with small pebbles. They were much overwhelmed when they danced. They kept on dancing until their feet were badly injured and began to bleed. They had green tattoos on their cheeks. They wore jasmine in their hair. They were generally dark, though some were almost fair. They sang in unpleasant voice. Their songs were full of melancholy.
The songs which the eunuchs sang were woeful. They, in their songs, celebrated sorrow of those lovers who ever craved for love, but their cravings for love remained unfulfilled and they died with their yearnings for love and desires. They sang of the unborn children who, before appearing in this world, died in the womb of their mothers. Through their songs, they expressed their utter sorrow for the unfortunate lovers and children. Some of them beat drums whereas others beat their flat, infertile and undeveloped breasts and expressed their sorrow. While dancing they showed their great excitement and twisted their body with their empty pleasure. The physical state of the dancing eunuchs was very pathetic and miserable. They were emaciated, pale, lean and thin. Obviously they were underfed. They looked like the half - burnt logs lying on the pyres. They were true embodiment of sterility and vacuity. They were internally hollowed. They were completely faded. Outwardly they looked very cheerful and entertained the people but inwardly they were broken. When they danced and sang, the crows sitting on the branches of the tree became silent and the children watched them with great astonishment. Suddenly the sky began to overcast with clouds. The deep rumbling after a flash of lightning was heard. In meanwhile it started raining, but the rain was so scanty that it could not provide relief from the awful heat. By falling the scanty rain, the smell of dust pervaded in the atmosphere. As the few drops of urine of the lizards and mice are enough to produce smell, in the same way meagre rain produced a sort of smell.
Critical appreciation of the Poem:
Introduction:
The poem entitled Dance of the Eunuchs is a descriptive poem. This poem was published in 1965 in Kamala Das very first volume of poems which appeared under the title “Summer in Calcutta”. It is the very first poem of the volume. It describes the dance of the eunuchs in an Indian street. Obviously, they try to earn livelihood by dancing. Their dancing is mechanical and painful. The conditions and climate are forbidding. The spectators are merciless. Even God seems to add to their woes. The tone of this poem is one of frustration and the temper is a feeling of the futility of love.
Thought - Content:
The weather is very hot. In such awfully hot weather the eunuchs dance in great excitement. They were wearing skirts. They had long braids. They wore jasmine in their hair and had green tattoos on their cheeks. They were generally dark, though some were almost fair. They were thin in limbs and dry. Obviously they were undernourished. They danced to the accompaniment of cymbals and drums. When they danced, their anklets were jingling and the cymbals produced loud music. They danced under the tree of Gulmohar with their long braids flying and their dark eyes flashed as they danced barefooted in the hot sun. Their voices were harsh and their songs were those of lovers dying and sterility (children left unborn). Some beat their drums while others beat their flat breasts and wept. The joy on their faces was only a mask as they writhed in pain and their faces were really vacant.
The Use of Symbols and Imagery:
The poetess vividly conjures up the atmosphere of a hot, tortured, corrupt, sterile and barren world through vivid symbols and images. In the poem, the eunuch has been regarded as a symbol of unproductiveness. The eunuch is here thus a metaphor for barrenness, and therefore, for the futility of love. Consequently the poem is an expression, in symbolic terms, of Kamala Das’ feeling of frustration in love. The poem contains plentiful imagery. The eunuchs’ outer zest, empty of emotional depth and intensity is revealed to their dancing movements. The atmosphere of heat and sterility is, first of all, expressed through ‘fiery Gulmohar’ and ‘the jasmines in their hair’ could not provide them with a soothing effect. Their songs are sterile because in their harsh voices they sing melancholy songs ‘Of lovers dying and of children left unborn’. The image of their sorry breasts again suggests their sterility and barrenness because they belong to neither sex. Their emotions are destined to remain unfulfilled. Theirs is a sterile world of ‘vacant ecstasy’. Their inner frustrations, disillusionments, fiery sensations left unfulfilled are expressed through their fractured personalities. The pathos of their inner and outer condition is revealed through the highly suggestive images:
“They were thin in limbs and dry; like half - burnt logs from
Funeral pyres, a drought and a rottenness
Were in each of them.”
A general sense of inadequacy finds expression in images of sterility:
“... a meagre rain that smelt of dust in
Attics and the urine of lizards and mice.”
Style and Language:
The poem effectively expresses Kamala Das’ state of mind in well-chosen words. She uses repetitive vocabulary to emphasise her anguish and intensity of emotions. The repetition of ‘hot’ and the addition of prefix ‘so’ before the second repetition heightens the effect of heat in weather. The repetition of certain words — ‘wide skirts going round and round’ and ‘anklets jingling, jingling’ emphasise their excitement and passion for dancing. The repetition of the word ‘jingling’ creates an auditory sensation of the music they produce while they dance:
“It was hot, so hot, before the eunuchs came
To dance, wide skirts going round and round, cymbals
Richly clashing, end anklets jingling, jingling.”
The diction of the poem is theme - oriented which creates the desired effect of sterility, rottenness inside the hearts of dancing eunuchs and of environmental heat. The poetess has used the phrase ‘writhed in vacant ecstasy’ is very significant as a devastating image of the barrenness of Kamala Das’ own life.
