Introduction to the Poem:
The poem entitled "The Freaks" is a confessional and autobiographical poem. It is an extract of Kamala Das’ anthology, “Summer in Calcutta”, published in 1965. It reveals the poetess’ feelings of love and lust. It also expresses her emotions with great intensity and poignancy. Her passionate yearning for love always remains unfulfilled. She presents her lover as the betrayer and an embodiment of sheer lustfulness. The poetess describes most effectively when she lies in bed with her lover or husband. The poetess presents her strivings to find emotional fulfilment and security in love but all her strivings prove to be futile. In the poem, she presents that there is no emotional or spiritual bond between her and her sexual partner. The title of the poem is suggestive and appropriate. The word ‘freak’ means abnormal person who deviates from accepted social norms. The lover and the beloved are freaks in this poem because they behave abnormally.
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| The Freaks by Kamala Das | Summary and Critical Appreciation | |
Summary of the Poem:
The poetess expresses her emotions with great intensity and poignancy. Her passionate yearning for love always remained unfulfilled. She ever craved for true emotions and feeling of love during sexual intercourse, but she could get only sexual pleasure which was absolutely monotonous without emotions of love. She made physical relationship with many persons in search of true feelings of love, but all her lovers or men had only the same interest in physical relationship. Even her husband also failed in developing emotional relationship with her. For her husband she was only the source of physical satisfaction. Her husband was not capable to give her complete physical satisfaction. She had an emotional attachment with a lover who oftenly slept with her in bed, but he also disappointed her . He left only irritation for her after sexual intercourse. She describes that lover who had been betrayer of love and an embodiment of sheer lustfulness. He was very repulsive. His physical ugliness reflected his inner corruption and degeneration. He had sun - burnt cheeks which symbolised the heat generated by sheer lustfulness and sexuality. It seemed as if his checks were turned brown due to extreme lustfulness. His mouth seemed to be very ugly and horrible like a dark cave. His teeth were uneven and looked somewhat repulsive on account of the drops of saliva sticking to them. Under sheer lustfulness her lover's right hand moved on her half - naked knees. Both the lover and the beloved (the poetess) remained under the great fire of sex. They remained greatly curious to perform the sexual act in order to satisfy their unfulfilled desire of sex. Although the poetess disliked her sexual partner, yet she remained extremely hungry for sexual gratification. But while making sexual intercourse. There was no emotional attachment between them. Due to having inner sterility and vacuity of emotions their minds wandered off from love which required complete emotional integration between the lover and beloved. They could only satisfy their physical requirement. For want of emotions, they were incapable of making love, so they kept on performing their sexual act. The lover moved his fingers over her delicate body to arouse only physical passion. But she ever yearned for the feelings of love. Her lover's loveless sexual advances failed to stir the fine feeling of love for which she earnestly arouse craved.
The poetess had ever been longing for the feelings of true love, but she could never fulfil this desire. She developed physical relationship with many persons. She turned to one lover after another but no one showed emotions of love for her. Everyone was interested in sexual relationship with her. Her husband also showed an indifferent attitude towards her emotions. He too was extremely fond of making sexual intercourse. He too disappointed her in every way. She describes about a lover whose loveless sexual advances failed to stir the fine feelings of love for which she had great yearning. During sexual intercourse, her lover remained busy in arousing physical excitement in her, but he greatly lacked emotions. His heart was completely barren of internal emotions. He remained overwhelmed with sexual feelings. Her heart was like an empty tank of water which was waiting eagerly to be filled with the feelings of true love, but her craving for true love could never be fulfilled and she always remained hungry of true emotions. Her heart, instead of filling true love, was filled with horrible silence which stung her. The stinging silence has been compared with the coiling snakes. The coiling snakes remain in utter silence state, but their silence may prove very fatal and poisonous. They may suddenly sting someone. Here she describes her husband who, during sexual intercourse hardly exchanged a word and he remained silent until he performed sexual act. At last, the poetess calls herself an abnormal kind of person. In order to hide her inner sterility, vacant ecstasy and revulsion she pretends to display a strong and intense desire for sexual gratification.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem:
Introduction:
The poem entitled The Freaks is a confessional and autobiographical poem. It is a brutally honest poem in which Kamala Das unflinchingly bares her soul. It recounts the failure of her love. It appeared in Kamala Das’ anthology, “Summer in Calcutta” in 1965. It also reveals the poetess’ feelings of love and lust through fine and suggestive images. The poetess could not find emotional fulfilment in marriage, which according to her is a male dominated institution. Her frustrations, want of love and sufferings are frankly and sincerely expressed.
Thought - Content:
The poetess describes briefly, but most effectively, her feelings as she lies in bed with a lover. Both the woman and the man wait eagerly for the commencement of the act which would bring to both of them the fulfilment of their sexual desire. The man's fingers move upon the woman's body nimbly enough but not with the kind of urgency and the passion which can arouse or stir a deeper yearning for sexual satisfaction than a merely superficial desire of the body. In other words, she certainly experiences the desire of her flesh or body for gratification but she is not experiencing any deeper (emotional or spiritual) desire for a union with her sexual partner. Lust or a desire for bodily gratification is certainly there in her, but she does not have any yearning to merge herself with her sexual partner. There is no emotional or spiritual bond between her and her sexual partner.
Confessional and Autobiographical Elements:
It is a confessional and autobiographical poem which authentically records the lovelessness, emotional sterility and disintegration, the frustrations and disillusionments, the pretension of flaunting, at times, a grand, flamboyant lust in the poetess’ married life. The poetess describes a sexual experience and the feelings which accompanied it. Her feelings, as she lay in bed with a man, were ambivalent. She did experience the gratification of her sexual desire at the time but she felt disappointed by the lack of any love or affection for her in his heart. She felt his fingers moving upon her body nimbly enough but not with the kind of urgency and passion which would arouse in her a yearning for an emotional union with him in addition to desiring the gratification of her lust. This poem clearly shows her frankness in dealing with the subject of sex. She is so frank here as to call herself a freak and to confess that, in order to save her face, she flaunts, at time, a grand, flamboyant lust.
Her Feminism:
It is a poem of protest. Here the very way in which a lover makes a love to her disgusts her, and she feels that her heart is an empty cistern waiting to be filled only with coiling snakes of silence. She calls herself a freak; but she does so in her state of desperation, adding that she flaunts, at times, a grand, flamboyant lust only to save her face. Thus, we can safely assert that the spirit of protest or revolt against the conventions of society permeates and saturates her poetry.
Distinction between Love and Sex:
In the poem, Kamala Das speaks about the want of affection in her sexual relationship with the lover. She misses not only love and affection but even intensity of the passion which is associated with lust. Her husband or her lover is a man who has plenty of animal passion in him but nothing emotional or spiritual in his build - up, while she regards the sexual act as meaningless and barren if not accompanied by a feeling of emotional and spiritual attachment between the partners. The woman certainly seeks the gratification of her animal desire for sex, but she could have enjoyed this experience fully only if she could have a feeling of oneness with her set partner. Her whole being would not become involved in the sexual act on account of a want of feeling and emotion in her sexual partner.
The Use of Imagery:
The poem describes vividly, though briefly, the mouth of a lover which looks like a dark cavern, with uneven teeth gleaming inside. The lover's right hand rests upon the woman's knee, while the finger - tips of the other hand move upon her body, arousing the skin's ‘lazy hungers’. The woman's heart is like an empty cistern (or the tank in a toilet) getting filled not with water but with coiling snakes of silence. This picture is partly concrete but partly very abstract. The woman calls herself a freak, adding that, in order to save her face or to preserve the appearance of a normal human being, she flaunts, at times, a grand, flamboyant lust. Here we have an ostentatious image of the woman's sensuality.
Style and Language:
Kamala Das has cultivated a poetic style - conversational, colloquial, fluent and graceful, which fits in the confessional nature of her poetry. He diction has nothing to do with mystical and philosophical musings or religious chants She does not compose poems of love or nature. She writes only about herself. So she imparts a personal touch to words. Mark the simplicity and colloquial ease in the diction in the following extracts which express her intense emotions.
“He talks, turning a sun - stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love.”
The words used in the poem are well - chosen and very appropriate, even felicitous in many cases. The man's mouth has metaphorically been depicted as a dark cavern with uneven teeth gleaming inside it because of the tiny drops of saliva sticking to them. The phrase ‘to race towards love’ is very appropriate in describing the desire for haste which both the man and woman are experiencing. ‘Tripping idly over puddles of desire’ is another excellent, metaphorical phrase which refers to the small obstacles in the way of love - making. These obstacles are comparable to little pools of water which obstruct the path of a person walking through a street or a lane. The closing lines of this poem are an excellent specimen of the kind of impressive vocabulary that she is capable of commanding. Here she says that, at times, she flaunts a grand, flamboyant lust.
